Category Archives: History

Apologetics, Historical Jesus Debate, History, New Testament - Gospels, New Testament Theology, Theology

N. T. Wright on the Resurrection

James Grant says,

Mark Driscoll provided something of an overview of N. T. Wright’s book The Resurrection of the Son of God. Here is Driscoll’s brief five-point summary of Wright’s argument:

  1. Resurrection and its cognates mean “life after ‘life after death.’”
  2. Ancient paganism strenuously denied the possibility of resurrection.
  3. A strong belief in the hope of future resurrection existed only within the bounds of certain sects of Judaism.
  4. The only possible reason why early Christianity began and took the shape it did is that the tomb really was empty and that people really did meet Jesus, alive again.
  5. Though admitting it involves accepting a challenge at the level of worldview itself, the best historical explanation for all these phenomena is that Jesus was indeed bodily raised from the dead.

Read his whole post.

[HT: James Grant]

Culture News, Current Events, History, Law and Faith, Politics, Roman Catholicism, Sacraments, Theology

Culture News: D.C.-Area Bishops To Enforce Communion Ban On Sebelius

Well, I cannot say that this is not relevant to our nations current historical setting. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is going to be a very important moment in the coming culture shift that grows stronger every day that newly appointed secularists and anti-Christs are confirmed into the Government’s leading ranks.

Here is the news story from The Bulletin:

Two Washington, D.C.-area Catholic bishops have instructed Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan., President Barack Obama’s pick to Be Secretary Of Health and Human Services, to refrain from receiving Holy Communion on account of her stances on human-life issues such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

This comes as Ms. Sebelius undergoes Senate confirmation hearings before the Committee on on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

In May 2008, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan. told Ms. Sebelius that she should not present herself to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. Last week, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., both said that they would enforce Archbishop Naumann’s orders while Ms. Sebelius is in their respective dioceses.

Ms. Sebelius ran afoul of Catholic leaders for her strident support of abortion. She has been connected with late-term abortionist Geroge Tiller, who was found not guilty of violating Kansas’ late-term abortion laws at a trial earlier this week. Dr. Tiller still faces an investigation that could strip him of his medical license.

Ms. Sebelius was asked to refrain from the Eucharist in accordance with Canon 915 of the Catholic Code of Canon Law. According to that Canon, “those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

[HT: In Light of the Gospel]

Church Fathers, Church Year, Ecclesiology, Evangelism, History, Prayer, Promotionals, Theology

Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day

patrick

In honor of the great missionary and pastor, commonly known as “St. Patrick”, I would like to encourage you all to take a moment sometime today and read about his life. Below are a few articles to choose from, but I highly recommend the one by Mark Driscoll called Vintage Saints: Saint Patrick. Here is an excerpt from that article:

Technically, Saint Patrick is not even a saint, as he was never canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Additionally, Patrick was not even Irish. Rather, he was an Englishman who was a Roman citizen that spoke Latin and a bit of Welsh.

Patrick was born around 390 A.D. When he was roughly 16 years of age he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland on a ship where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next six years alone in the wilderness as a shepherd for his masters’ cattle and sheep. [Continue Reading…]

Here are the other articles:

Culture, Current Events, Debate, History, Law and Faith, Politics

Obama’s Attack on Medical Civil Liberties

Here is a disturbing list of things that President Obama has already done since he’s been in office for under 3 months (by Newt Gingrich and Rick Tyler):

  • Efforts to roll back freedom of conscience protections are only the latest in a series of aggressive actions that demonstrate intolerance for those whose conscience is convicted in support of a culture of life:
  • In the first month of his presidency, Obama reversed the established Mexico City policy that kept taxpayer money from being used by international organizations for abortions as a method of family planning protecting millions of American from paying for a procedure that they find morally objectionable.
  • Last week, the President unilaterally lifted embryonic-stem-cell research restrictions.
  • In the President’s recent healthcare summit, groups that support abortion were invited but pro-life groups with a stake in healthcare were excluded.
  • With the President’s support, Congress recently approved $50 million in funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA is complicit in China’s unspeakably cruel one-child enforcement policy, which employs forced abortion and sterilization.
  • The President’s nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be the new Secretary of Health and Human Services prompted George Weigel who leads Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center to question whether “conscience-rights protection for pro-life physicians and health-care workers [will] be sustained, amended, or eliminated.”
  • In February, the Administration decided that it would no longer extend hiring protections to faith-based organizations but would instead review on a “case-by-case basis.

. . . . . . .

Yet, the most hostile assault against the civil liberties in the medical profession may be yet to come.

In 2007, Obama promised a Planned Parenthood gathering on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade that, as president, he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). If enacted, FOCA would repeal all federal and state restrictions on abortion including the ban on partial-birth abortion. FOCA would force all public hospitals and health programs offering maternity services to provide abortions. Moreover, provisions in state constitutions that protect speech and the free exercise of religion of those whose conscience is opposed to abortion could be invalidated.

Having no reason to believe that President Obama will not fulfill this radical campaign pledge, some Catholic bishops are talking openly about engaging in civil disobedience to protect Catholic hospitals and their doctors from being forced to perform abortions.

The chilling effect of the Obama administration forcing doctors and nurses to choose between their losing their careers and being compelled to participate in abortions against their moral and religious belief is incalculable. Not only will pro-life doctors and nurses be driven from the professions, but patients will lose the ability to choose doctors who reflect their own religious and moral convictions, doctors who now help them to make healthcare choices based upon them.

The fact is, there are doctors and nurses who have no moral objection to abortion. Why then, should some medical professionals be compelled to do something that compromises their conscience? It is one thing to hold fast to the pro-abortion position as a matter of a personal opinion, it is quite another to force someone else to compromise their moral integrity.

Now the clock is ticking on the thirty-day review and public feedback period where public opinion might change the administration’s direction toward religious freedom. Let’s hope. [Continue Reading…]

Culture, Current Events, History, Law and Faith, Politics, Science

Obama’s Legacy: Promoting a Culture of Death

Ryan T. Anderson:

President Obama today [March 9th, 2009] fulfilled his campaign promise to lift federal-funding restrictions on research involving the destruction of human embryos. He couldn’t have done so at a more inappropriate time, for just last week scientists made headlines again announcing yet another breakthrough in what is known as “induced pluripotent stem-cell” technology. Following up on the initial breakthrough in November 2007 that allowed scientists to produce the biological equivalent of embryonic stem cells without creating, using, or destroying any human embryos, scientists have continued to refine their methods. Last week’s announcement was the latest in a long string of developments. If Obama truly wants to find honorable compromises that the entire nation can accept in good conscience and even endorse, he should be promoting these alternative sources.

During the ceremony this morning, Obama announced that by signing this executive order “we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research.” Of course there never was a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. President Bush was, in fact, the first president in history to fund embryonic stem cell research. The compromise Bush reached, however, put restrictions in place that prevented the further destruction of human embryos. It is these restrictions protecting human life that Obama has lifted.

[HT: James Grant]

Culture, Culture News, Current Events, Denominations, History, Statistics

Culture News: Churches blame empty pews on fewer babies

Church Pews Not Full

From the Tennessean.com:

That’s what almost every major Christian denomination in the United States has in common — from Southern Baptists to Missouri Synod Lutherans.

In fact, 21 of the 25 largest groups in the United States reported a decline or flat line in membership last year, according to the 2009 edition of the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches. In most cases, the so-called birth dearth is the reason.

Carl Royster, a Church of Christ statistician, says that churches are seeing the aftereffects of the baby boom.

For example, in the mid-20th century, conservative groups like the Southern Baptists and Church of Christ saw their membership spike. “You had humongous growth in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s,” Royster said. “Now, the baby boomers are beginning to die off.”

Those boomers had fewer kids than their parents, leaving fewer descendants to replace them in the pews.

Royster said that he’s not panicking about the church decline. But he’s worried about the future.

“The sky is not falling yet,” he said. “But in a few years, it might be.”

Paul Prill, professor of communication at Lipscomb University and the part-time preacher at Acklen Avenue Church of Christ, says the congregation once averaged about 120 but fell to 50 when kids in the church grew up and moved away and older members became too frail to attend.

In recent years, young married couples settling in the area have begun returning, at a trickle’s pace, bringing the congregation back to about 80 members.

But it’s a slow process, Prill said.

“It’s hard to reach people who are in their 20s and are not going to church,” he said.

[HT: Ed Stetzer]

Culture, False Religion, History, Islam

Have Muslims Already Won Europe?

Paul Belien’s article answers “yes.” Here is a quote from the article that James Grant pointed me to:

The native Dutch are moving out. Since 2004, more indigenous Dutchmen have emigrated each year than immigrants have moved in. People who have lost faith in God do not fight. They run. Since they do not believe in life after death, this life is the only thing they have to lose. One emigrant Dutchman, a homosexual author who lives in Brussels, writes: “I am not a warrior. I do not fight for freedom. I am only good at enjoying it.” This mentality has affected the whole of Western Europe. A young German woman recently said that it is “better to let yourself be raped than risk injuries while resisting, better to avoid fighting than risk death.” Europe has chosen the path of submission. Islamization is not the cause but the consequence of the collapse of Europe. The very word Islam means “submission.” Many Europeans have submitted already. In that sense, they have already become Muslims.

Culture, Culture News, Current Events, History, Politics

How to Stimulate the Economy: Let the Elderly Die

Well, in typical Western Socialist footsteps, the new “economic” stimulus bill being passed through the Senate and back to the House has added a “wonderful” step toward universal health care (i.e. – selective population control). Here is an article by Betsy McCaughey on Bloomberg.com explaining what has been added to the stimulus bill over the weekend:

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

….

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

[Continue Reading…]

Apologetics, History, Islam

Muslim Scholar Declares: “Muhammad Probably Never Existed”

David Wood said:

Recently, Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a convert to Islam and a scholar of Islamic theology, shocked the world by declaring that, based on his research, Muhammad probably never existed. (For the news about Kalisch, see “Muslim Academic Questions Muhammad’s Existence,” “Professor Hired for Outreach to Muslims Delivers a Jolt,” and “Scandal Exposes Islam’s Weakness.”)

Let’s start with the obvious. It’s quite common to find Muslim apologists appealing to the most radical, anti-Christian, atheistic writings in their attacks against Christianity. For instance, this past April, as James and I debated Jalal Abualrub, Jalal said that Christians don’t have any evidence that Jesus ever existed. Here he could only be basing such a claim on the hyperskeptical nonsense of some of the self-proclaimed “infidels” who write for the Secular Web. (Note: Some of the writers there are actually reasonable scholars–but not the ones who hold that Jesus was a myth.) The Jesus-myth theory has become quite popular in some circles, and Muslims seem quite happy with this (though I’m not sure why Muslims would be so delighted to hear that Jesus never existed; wouldn’t this refute Islam?).

But what happens when the same radical skepticism that has been applied to Christianity for the past two centuries is applied to Islam? Kalisch gives us the answer: Muhammad probably never existed.

[Continue Reading…]