CADRE Comments

The present societal shutdown from the coronavirus is really unprecedented in my lifetime. For some of us, this is a time that raises questions about our own mortality and what is truly important. For some people, this time with its rising world-wide body counts also raises another iteration of the usual question about God: How can a good and loving God allow this to happen? Oxford Mathematics Professor John C. Lennox has written a short booklet addressing the concerns that Christians may have about God during this virus crisis. Entitled, “ Where Is God in a Coronavirus World? ”, the book is short and can be purchased for less than $5 on several websites. I purchased mine for under $4 at Christianbooks.com. The book itself is divided into six short chapters. These chapters are: Feeling Vulnerable – A quick recognition of the anxiety that this crisis is engendering and a reminder that while prior plagues that have rocked the Earth seem far in the distant past, pandemics obvio...

I am going to say something that many people will not immediately accept, and I fully imagine that I will catch grief for saying it. But here it goes: People are constantly spreading untruths about Christianity. I know, I know. For some readers this is a real shocker. They have been told by other non-Christians certain “truths” about God, the Bible and Christianity, and they had no reason to believe that they were untrue. I mean, c’mon, we all know that Christopher Columbus proved that the Earth was really round to the stunned disbelief of the anti-science, flat-earth believing Church, right? Except that it isn’t what happened at all . The new resource is from Dr. Michael Newton Keas, who earned a PhD in the history of science from the University of Oklahoma, presently serves as an adjunct professor of the history and philosophy of science at Biola University, and who is a senior fellow of Discovery Institute. Dr. Keas has made available for free his book, Unbelievable: 7 My...

While people who meet me may not immediately recognize it, I am an an introvert. Fortunately, I am not the type of introvert who seeks to avoid any type of interaction with people. But at the same time, I don't particularly welcome it. When offered the opportunity to choose between going to a party and staying home with a good book or a movie, unless I am good friends with the people at the party I will always opt to stay home.  But, of course, that's not the way it works. Being married to a wonderful woman who is much more of an extrovert than I am, I am often forced to go to social gatherings of various types where there are people with whom I am not particularly comfortable. In the past, I would hang around with my wife, but that almost always made me feel like some unwanted bystander to her conversations. So, inevitably, I would move off to a corner where I would happily smile and talk to people who took the time to approach me, but I rarely made any real effort to ini...

In doing some research, I came across a website named Evidence for Jesus Christ which apparently had our own J.P. Holding as one of its members. According to the website, the group that created Evidence for Jesus Christ were “formerly the Errant Skeptics Research Institute.  Our primary mission and focus has shifted to presenting strong evidence for Jesus Christ's claim that He is the unique Son of God, and that He is the only way one can be saved.”  In reviewing the website, I came across a chart created by Gary Butner, Th.D. and R.A. Sickler, Ph.D. entitled Dating the Books of the New Testament, a Chronological Order of the New Testament which these two scholars prepared with an eye towards establishing that average dates for the books of the New Testament based upon actual scholarship and not the rantings of Internet atheists. The website notes:  Dating the New Testament, based on the opinions of several hundred New Testament scholars.   In a cour...

For the first time in a long time, I had the opportunity to update the CADRE links on Biblical Archaeology on the Christian History page . Here is the list of websites now listed on that site: Archaeology Sites Amazing Discoveries in Bible Archaeology A link page to various sites on Biblical Archaeology. Archaeology and the Bible The Associates for Biblical Research monitors new archeological discoveries of the ancient Biblical world, and in fact produces many of these new discoveries through its own staff of professional archaeologists. Source of the Radio Program "Stones Cry Out". Associates for Biblical Research To provide information to the Christian community and the general public by the most effective means available on the subject of Biblical archaeology and the creation/evolution issues. This information is to be obtained from original research and fieldwork, and the research and fieldwork done by others outside the organization. B.A.S.E Institu...

While surfing the 'net, I came across an article that I thought would be of interest to those interested in apologetics. Carried on MacLeans.CA , the article is entitled Jesus historians get an earful from Maurice Casey . Coming from the so-called middle, Professor Casey has spent a life-time studying the texts of the New Testament and has issues his own book about the subject entitled "Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching." The article goes on to briefly say what he finds problematic with the conservative side (accepting "as historically valid such sources as the Gospel of John, which presents Jesus as fully divine, capable of walking on water and raising the dead, and virtually a Gentile, embroiled in constant tensions, not with scribes and Pharisees, but with 'the Jews'") and the liberals (the insistence on "mining documents of no historical value, including Gospels ascribed to the Apostle Thomas or Mary ...

Today, December 30, 2009, Hugh Hewitt will air a previously recorded debate between Michael Shermer , the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Science Lecture Series at Caltech, and Adjunct Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University, and Greg Koukl , Founder and President of Stand to Reason, author of Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air with Francis J. Beckwith, and Precious Unborn Human Persons, and adjunct professor in Christian apologetics at Biola University. If you tune in today, the debate can be heard here by clicking the "Listen Live" link . The debate will be broadcast from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm Eastern time and 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm Pacific time. (I know that those of you in the Central and Mountain times are smart enough to figure out what that translates to for your local time.) Greg has been dropping hints about som...

Jerram Barrs has put a 26 lesson course on Christian apologetics on-line. The course, entitled Apologetics and Outreach is described as: An analysis of the philosophical, religious, and scientific beliefs and ideas that have shaped different cultures and are now reshaping our multicultural and pluralistic society. Differences in attitudes toward the value and purpose of life, sexual identity and roles, racial and cultural differences, God, good and evil, superstition, etc., are all discussed with the goal of learning how to better communicate the Gospel in our society. The course has sessions on Postmodernism, Missions and Apologetics. The course comes courtesy of the Covenant Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian Church in America seminary. Each lesson has a PDF of the lecture and a study guide. Other courses available include Ancient and Medieval Church History , Biblical Theology and Christian Ethics .

When I first read The Abolition of Man , I found it to be one of C.S. Lewis' more intriguing books. Beginning with what appears to be a rather innocuous reference to Coleridge's comments about a couple looking at a waterfall, the book builds a case for traditional values (what Lewis calls "the Tao"). Since I often learn the most when I prepare for a class and have to defend my understanding to a group of educated people, I undertook to teach a four week class on the book in the Adult Education program of my church. The results were great. Having discussed the book within the study, I found that I have a much better grasp of the problems that C.S. Lewis was addressing. Thus, I am sharing on the CADRE site the material that I prepared for the class. Besides for the book itself (the text of which can be found entirely on-line), the only other resources that I used in the course were the first two chapters of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity , and a short essay from C.S....

RBC Ministries , the company that publishes the devotional booklet "Our Daily Bread", has undertaken to erect a website that I am certain will be useful to believers but criticized mightly by skeptics as being too limited in scope and detail. The new site is named, Answers to Tough Questions and seeks to address some difficult questions posed by the Bible. The main categories covered thus far are: Relationships, Personal Struggles, Contemporary Issues, Ethics, World Religions, The Paranormal, The Bible, Christianity and God. Each of these categories is broken down into subcategories, and some of the subcategories are further broken down into additional sub-subcategories. Winding through the various strata of categories, the questions that are asked are reasonable and the answers are fairly concise and useful. For example, under the subcategory of the Existence of God is the following question: " Is it inconsistent, as Richard Dawkins claims, for believers in God to look...

Ben Witherington III, Ph.D., Amos Professor of NT for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and author of multiple books, including What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bible , has published on his blog a very interesting article entitled The Rhetorical Character of Hebrews . This entry is apparently the text of a lecture he is (or was) scheduled to give at the Society of Biblical Literature lecture. At the outset, he takes up the question about the authorship of Hebrews. Of course, there have been numerous theories as to who wrote the book (including some that identify the author as the Apostle Paul), but rather than focus on the "who", he focuses on "why" there is no author identified. It is of course possible that the author is so well known to the audience that there was no need for such an identification here. I would suggest however, that while that may be true, there is another primary reason...

A long running fad in some circles is to try to find the "historic Jesus." In this line of thought, the "historic Jesus" cannot be the same Jesus that we find in the Bible. Instead, the "historic Jesus" must be some interesting historical figure (such as a eschatological preacher) who has been layered in myth and clothed in deity by his followers. He certainly wouldn't have claimed to be God (since there is no personal God) and he would have been appalled at what today's Christians would have made of him. People like John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg and the Jesus Seminar promote this view in their books (that are always more abundant on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and Borders than the books by more conservative scholars like William Lane Craig or J.P. Moreland). Fortunately, while this fad belief gets far more publicity (especially around Christmas and Easter), at least one author who rejects this view and makes the case for historic Christian...

Robert Bowman, a very informed apologist and one of the researchers behind the Institute for Religious Research , has now started his own apologetics blog. The new blog, entitled The Religious Researcher , will seek to answer questions about Christianity. Today's blog is entitled FAQ on the Trinity, 1: Must one believe in the Trinity to be saved? In responding to the question, Mr. Bowman notes: The short answer is that it is not quite accurate to say that belief in the doctrine of the Trinity is essential for salvation. Doctrinal accuracy on any theological subject is in any case at most a litmus test or barometer of the genuineness of a person’s salvation, not a prerequisite for receiving the gift of salvation. There is no theology exam on which a person needs a passing score before God will accept that person’s trust in him for salvation. We are saved by God’s grace through faith, that is, through our trust and reliance on God’s gift of salvation in Christ (Rom. 3:21-26; Eph. 2:...

I recently came across a website called ReligionLink : a resource website for religion writers. The page features a large number of links to articles, resources and information related to topics that may be of interest to religion writers. Concurrently, it provides articles, resources and information related to topics that may be of interest to apologists. For example, while there is no link to a page entitled "apologetics", there are links to topics that can be used for apologetics. Thus, there is a page on the Apostle Paul entitled The Apostle Paul: Saint of the public square . The ReligionLink page discusses the "New Perspective on Paul." According to the page: Given his prominence in the early Christian movement, Paul, like Jesus himself, has been the focus of renewed scholarly exploration in the past century that has sought to reread his role in light of historical criticism and new discoveries about the Holy Land of the first century. But the so-called New Per...

CADRE contributor, the Dawn Treader, has announced on his blog that Chuck Colson will be visiting and exchanging comments on the blog on Wednesday. According to The Dawn Treader's Monday entry : Attention Dawn Treader readers. Chuck Colson, author and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and Breakpoint radio and worldview ministry, will be paying a visit to Dawn Treader this Wednesday, March 5th. What brings Chuck Colson to this little corner of the blogosphere? I asked Mr. Colson a question related to his new Zondervan book, The Faith . He will respond to my question and engage with you and me in the comments of that post. Look for Wednesday's post! Let's get a good discussion going.

J.L. Hinman, one of the contributors to this blog as well as being the author of his own blog, Meta's blog , has written a response to The Tale of the Twelve Officers written by Mark Vuletic and posted on the Internet Infidels website. His response, entitled The Tale of Twelve Officers has been posted on the CADRE's official website (accept no substitutes). The original essay by Mr. Vuletic, is a parable (or anti-parable) about the problem of pain. It seeks to critiques twelve different Christian responses to the problem of pain by pointing out their alleged inadequacies by positing twelve different policemen who observe a heinous crime and do nothing about it for twelve different reasons. The reasons, of course, attempt to mimic the arguments made by Christian to respond to the very real and difficult problem of pain in this world. Here is an example of one of the reasons with Hinman's response: Fourth: [The fourth officer explains his inaction:] "When I first arri...

From Understanding Islam Sermon Series : Since the Islamic influence worldwide can no longer be ignored, what do we do? Christians can know how to respond, and must react with a biblical worldview approach. A set of five-part messages on “Understanding Islam” is available for download to help educate and prepare today’s Church regarding this major influence on today’s culture worldwide. Prepared by a CEN ministry partner, these messages can be used, referenced and distributed…consider offering them as a resource to your church in response to September’s National Preparedness Month. The five topics are: Islamic History, Islamic Scripture (The Qur’an), Islamic and The West, Islamic Followers, and How to Minister to Muslims. As stated by the messages’ author Dr. Stan Reeder, “We can’t just sit around and do nothing. As John Wesley says, ‘The church has nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work.’” Developed and preached the summer of 2007 to his congre...

Today's Christianity Today has an interview with Richard Baukham, author of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses , entitled They Really Saw Him . Set up in a Q&A format, the article has some interesting insights into his book. What it the importance of "testimony" for interpreting the New Testament? I think it helps us to understand what sort of history we have in the Gospels. Most history rests mostly on testimony. In other words, it entails believing what witnesses say. We can assess whether we think witnesses are trustworthy, and we may be able to check parts of what they say by other evidence. But in the end we have to trust them. We can't independently verify everything they say. If we could, we wouldn't need witnesses. It's the same with witnesses in court. Testimony asks to be trusted, and it's not irrational to do so. We do so all the time. Now in the case of the Gospels, I think we have exactly the kind of testimony that historians in the ancient world ...

One of my favorite books on Christianity is actually three books: The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy . The Trilogy consists of three of Schaeffer's works in one volume: The God Who Is There , Escape from Reason and He Is There and He Is Not Silent . Recently, I have been reading another Schaeffer book, How Should We Then Live? , subtitled "The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture". In this book, Schaeffer examines the way in which cultural worldviews have led to the rise and decline of various civilizations. The first chapter tackles the fall of the Roman Empire and the lessons about world views to be learned from the history of ancient Rome. In addition to the book, Schaeffer has also produced a video series by the same name. Yesterday, I learned that that the first tape of the video series is available on the Internet here . The series, as is common for Schaeffer's works, assumes that the reader/viewer has a working knowledge of history and philosophy sin...

Michael J. Penfold, primary author of the articles on WebTruth , has recently developed a new webpage specifically dealing with articles and audio critiquing Richard Dawkins' travesty, The God Delusion . The website is called AtheistDelusion.net , and according to it's introduction, AtheistDelusion.net is "merely a window pointing to articles, books, DVDs, websites, lectures and reviews on other sites that provide answers and alternatives to Dawkins' arguments on atheism and Darwinism from a number of different perspectives." The website features articles such as the following: The Dawkins Confusion - Naturalism ad absurdum, Written by: Alvin Platinga Darwin's Rottweiler and the Public Understanding of Scientism, Written by: Peter S. Williams God Knows Why Faith is Thriving, Written by: Dinesh D'Sousa The website also features audio such as the following: Dawkins' God, by: Prof. Alister McGrath The Scientific Bankruptcy of Darwinian Evolution, by: Mic...