21Mar 2022 by Post

How We Got Our Bible: New Testament Canonical Reception

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Bible, Canon, Christianity, Church Fathers, Jesus Christ, New Testament, reliability, Ryan Leasure, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Ryan Leasure   This article is part 5 in a nine-part series on how we got our Bible. Part 1 considered inspiration and inerrancy. Part 2 looked at the unfolding of the Old Testament. Part 3 examined the Old Testament canon and the Apocrypha. Part 4 considered the canonical attributes for New Testament books. This article will unpack how the early church received the New Testament canon. Marcion (AD 85-160) Before diving into the the corporate reception of the canon, it’s first necessary to say a brief word about Marcion. According to church historian Henry Chadwick, Marcion was “the most radical and to the church the most formidable of heretics.”[1] What was Marcion’s heresy? He promoted Gnosticism—the belief that the god who created the world was evil, and thus the OT was evil. This belief led Marcion to reject the…
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28Jan 2022 by Post

For Darwin, Timing Was Everything

Bible, Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin and the Ghost of Epicurus (series), Christianity, Christianity Not Mysterious, Culture & Ethics, Das Wesen des Christentums, David Hume, deism, demythologization, Enlightenment, Essays and Reviews, Evolution, faith, George Eliot, John Stuart Mill, John Toland, Ludwig Feuerbach, On Liberty, On the Origin of Species, Owen Chadwick, philosophy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Samuel Wilberforce, secularization, The Essence of Christianity, Thucydides
Charles Darwin, as we saw yesterday, pulled off an intellectual coup against the major thinkers of the Western tradition. How did he do it? Source
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14Jan 2022 by Post

Fox News Article Shows Why Evolutionary Solutions to Adam and Eve Fail to Satisfy

Ann Gauger, Bible, BIO-Complexity, BioLogos, Christianity, Discovery Institute, Faith & Science, Fazale Rana, Fox News, Francis Collins, Genealogical Adam and Eve model, Genesis, Homo heidelbergensis, Human Origins, In Quest of the Historical Adam, Jesus Christ, Jonathan McLatchie, Joshua Swamidass, methodological naturalism, myth, Nathan Lents, Ola Hössjer, Paul Nelson, reasons to believe, Salvo Magazine, scripture, TalkAboutDoubts.com, Terrell Clemmons, The Genealogical Adam and Eve, theistic evolution, theology, william lane craig
Is William Lane Craig’s book good news for Christians? I’m not so sure, and here’s one reason why. Source
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18Oct 2021 by Post

The Tragedy of Francis Collins’s Model for Science-Faith Integration 

abortion, Bible, Casey Luskin, China, Christianity, Christianity Today, Culture & Ethics, Darwin Day in America, Darwinian evolution, Downs syndrome, Ed Stetzer, ENCODE, Evangelical Christians, Francis Collins, gain-of-function research, George W. Bush, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Witt, Junk DNA, Karl Giberson, Kenneth Miller, Mark Galli, Medicine, Michael Behe, Michael Carome, National Institutes of Health, Obama Administration, pastores, premature babies, professors, pundists, Science (journal), The Language of God, The New England Journal of Medicine, University of Alabama-Birmingham, vaccination
The depiction of Francis Collins as someone who has developed a good model for integrating faith and science is in many respects a tragic myth. Source
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16Oct 2021 by Post

Critics Respond to Stephen Meyer’s New Book (Without Mentioning Him by Name)

Alan Guth, Alexander Vilenkin, Arvind Borde, BGV, Bible, Big Bang, Christianity, CMBR, cosmic fine-tuning, cosmic microwave background radiation, cosmology, critics, Ethan Siegel, Evolution, Harry Potter, inflationary theory, Intelligent Design, Judaism, Physics, Earth & Space, Return of the God Hypothesis, Singularity, Stephen Meyer, universe, Voldemort
The critics, including Ethan Siegel, appear to see Meyer much like Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. Source
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06Oct 2021 by Post

Extrabiblical Evidence for the Veracity of the Gospel History

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Bible, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Extrabiblical Evidence for the Gospel, Gospel, Historical documents, history, Jonathan McLatchie, New Testament, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
In a previous article, I reviewed several arguments that are typically raised in support of the historicity of Jesus but, upon closer inspection, turn out to be of extremely limited evidential value. In this article, I will discuss an approach to arguing from extrabiblical sources that I consider to be much more robust. Whereas in the previous article, I critiqued appeals to direct testimony to the historicity of Jesus (which, at best, only attest to the broad outlines of the gospel story), in this article I will consider incidental allusions in the gospels that are indirectly and undesignedly confirmed by extrabiblical secular sources. The data surveyed in the ensuing discussion are of varying evidential weights, though all are (in my assessment) significantly more probable on the hypothesis of historical reportage than on its falsehood. The case for…
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05Oct 2021 by Post

Confronting Homosexuality in a Culture of Identity (Part 2)

Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Culture, Culture CrossExamined, FreeThinking Ministries, God, Homosexuality, Jesus, Josh Klein, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, morality, theology
By Josh Klein    Previously, we looked at the dichotomy between what it means to declare homosexual activity a sin and how those who believe in Christian orthodoxy deal with it.  We addressed the current cultural movement’s roots and introduced the idea of identity into the argument. It was necessary to do this so that we can have a strong foundation from which to build the following arguments.  We must first know why the liberal theologians seek to glorify homosexuality as an identity to understand why the interpretation of scripture has shifted from condemning obvious sinful behavior to condoning that very same behavior. If you have not read part one you can do so by clicking here. The goal of the believer should not be to convince the unbeliever of individual sins, such…
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27Sep 2021 by Post

Confronting Homosexuality in a Culture of Identity (Part 1)

Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Culture, FreeThinking Ministries, Homosexuality, Homosexuals, Josh Klein, lil nas x, The homosexuality in the Bible, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Josh Klein Lil Nas X Do you know the name?  I do not know why you would, but Lil Nas X has become a bit of a cultural icon in recent years.  He wrote a hit country/hip-hop song in 2019 called “Old Town Road” with country star Billy Ray Cyrus.  The success of the hit propelled Lil Nas X into the modern spotlight.  The song, and its remix, won him fourteen awards spanning from the Grammys to Kids’ Choice Awards[1]. As a result, Lil Nas X toured the country singing for elementary-age kids and was even quoted as saying young kids were his “core audience”[2] in early 2021. Why am I writing about Lil Nas X on a Christian website? Well, this man that vies for the eyes and…
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22Sep 2021 by Post

Serpents, Dragons, and the Bible

Apologetics, Bible, Dragons, gospels, Questions about the Bible, Ryan Leasure, Satan, Skeptics, The Serpent, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Ryan Leasure If you’re from an Appalachian snake-handling church, I’m sorry to disappoint. This is not THAT kind of post. Instead, it’s a post about how the Bible portrays snakes, serpents, and dragons. More than that, it’s about how a mighty warrior defeats the serpent to rescue his precious bride. If that story sounds familiar to you, it’s because so many great children’s tales of the past echo this same story. You see, the Bible presents three main characters:[1] 1) The Serpent (the villain—Satan), 2) The Damsel in Distress (the people of God), and 3) The Serpent Slayer (the hero—Jesus). It’s worth noting that “Serpent” is a biblical catch-all term that includes both snakes and dragons.[2] In other words, serpent is an umbrella category while snakes and dragons are more specific. Also worth…
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