Category Archives: Debate

Apologetics, Atheism, Books, Current Events, Debate, Evolution, History, Promotionals, Science, Testimonies, Theology

The God Delusion Debate

I just finished listening to “The God Delusion Debate” that was live broadcast on Moody Radio. The debate was between two Oxford professors, Dr. John Lennox and Dr. Richard Dawkins. I don’t know if any of you heard about it, or maybe some of you actually listened to it… either way, I think the main thing I want to mention about this debate are the closing remarks by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins said (roughly in my own summary of his words), that Dr. Lennox (the Christian in the debate) said so many great things about science and the universe, and that Dr. Lennox even presented a beautiful picture of a deistic god that tuned up the universe with laws and properties, but then all of a sudden, Dr. Lennox moved past his understanding of science and God’s natural laws built into the universe, to telling us dogmatically about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and God’s demand that we believe such a thing. Dawkins went on to say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is “so trite, so unworthy” of the universe that there is no reason for anyone to trust in it especially in light of Darwinian Evolution.

After hearing Dawkins’ closing statements, I make this connection… My Sunday school class has been studying Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. While listening to the radio tonight, it came to me vividly that Richard Dawkins personifies what Paul said about the gentile view of the Gospel of Jesus Christ… Paul said in 1 Cor. 1, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Tonight, Richard Dawkins said that the resurrection was foolish in light of the world’s evolutionary wisdom and that it is basically intellectually weak of anyone to believe such a thing. Simply astounding and yet so revealing that the Apostle Paul really did understand what he was talking about when he wrote that letter the Church at Corinth!

Dr. Lennox did an excellent job and I encourage anyone who has a chance to listen to it in the future to make an effort to do so. (You can purchase a CD here) I believe that everyone will all be encouraged and enlightened and better able to understand the New Atheism that is being preached by its ministers, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. For anyone interested in some good online debate, I would direct you to the debate at Christianity Today between Pastor Doug Wilson and Atheist Christopher Hitchens. You can read all the debate entries at this web page.

May God be glorified as His foolishness and His weakness is proclaimed throughout the world to all peoples! Amen!

Books, Debate, Ecclesiology, New Testament Theology, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

What is a Healthy Church?

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What is a healthy church

I am glad to say that my church is currently holding a Tuesday morning Bible study by working our way through Mark Dever’s book, “What is a Healthy Church?“, which Crossway has recently transformed, from a lowly booklet, into a beautiful hardback “mini” book for large scale publication. In other words, the old booklet that Dever’s 9 Marks Ministry put out has been formatted and enhanced in order to present to the Christian community at large through a major book distributor.

For those of you interested, here is the table of contents along with the intro and 1st chapter of the book.

Mark Dever is senior pastor of Capital Hills Baptist Church in Washington D.C.

He is also executive director of 9 Marks Ministry (9 Marks of a Healthy Church) which I mentioned and linked to above.

Un-Inventing the Church

No guarantees, but as time permits I hope to read back through Un-Inventing the Church by Andrew P. Sandlin as I go through Mark Dever’s book and finally finish the last few chapter’s in Sandlin’s book that I never got around to the last time.

I highly recommend Andrew Sandlin’s book for anyone who leans toward seeing a more “low church” view taught in Scripture, that focuses on the Church as the people of God gathered together and worshiping Jesus for both their individual and corporate salvation, and not all about buildings, traditions, confessions, and liturgy. The preface to the book is available to read here.

If any of you ever a get chance to read these two books, it won’t take you too long and I promise that it will challenge and edify you as you pursue a more Biblical understanding of what God says about what His Church is and what it should always be.

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

Apologetics, Atheism, Current Events, Debate, Evangelism, Evolution, Funny, History, Promotionals, Reforming, Science, Videos

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed

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EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed

EXPELLED the movie is due out in theaters nation wide in February of 2008! This is going to be a very controversial film and I cannot say just how thankful I am that Ben Stein has committed himself to fighting for the academic freedom of our scientists and scientists around the world. This is truly a blessing and an awesome surprise!

I encourage everyone to visit the site and follow the blog on this one. You can even sign up to volunteer to promote the film! It even has a sign up (check box) for youth leaders who want to get their kids involved! 🙂

Well, enough from me. Please check out the trailers on the sight. If the trailers tell us anything, I can almost guarantee that this movie is going to upset a TON of science and academic leaders! And why not since they need to be shaken up anyway. 😉 Here is one of the trailers…

Lastly, I’m re-posting Ben’s first blog entry from yesterday. Hope you enjoy reading it…

Continue reading EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed →

Debate, Historical Jesus Debate, History, Justification, New Perspective on Paul, New Testament - Gospels, New Testament Theology, Theology

The New Perspective on Paul and the Historical Jesus Quest

Scot McKnight, over at his Jesus Creed blog, has recently posted several entries summarizing and clearly explaining the history and claims of both the New Perspective on Paul and the Historical Jesus Quest.

I encourage everyone interested in getting a better grasp on what these things are all about to read these entries in full. Here they are:

New Perspective 1
New Perspective 2
New Perspective 3
New Perspective 4
New Perspective 5

Here is a PDF version of all five blog entries on the NPP.

Historical Jesus 1: Reimarus to Schweitzer
Historical Jesus 2: Bultmann to the Jesus Seminar
Historical Jesus 3: Jesus Seminar
Historical Jesus 4: Third Quest
Historical Jesus 5: Summing Up

To supplement the above reading I would also recommend the following articles:

What Did Paul Really Mean? by Simon Gathercole
Further Reading on the New Perspective by Simon Gathercole
What Did Simon Gathercole — and Moses — Really Mean? by Andrew Sandlin

Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Bultmann
Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Jesus Seminar
Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Third Quest and Summing Up

Conferences and Seminars, Current Events, Debate, Reforming, SBC News, Testimonies, Theology

Mark Dever and Al Mohler don’t get it

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Today, I received an E-mail from Enjoying God Ministries by Sam Storm. It is entitled “Piper, Grudem, Dever, et al, on Baptism, The Lord’s Supper, and Church Membership (just how “Together for the Gospel” are we?)“. I am reposting the entire E-mail below, but first some comments…

I fully agree with the thoughts of Sam Storm on the situation that he is addressing regarding the “Together for the Gospel” conference. Though I believe that John Piper holds an untenable view regarding his view of baptism and church membership, I at least admire the fact that he desires to be consistently inconsistent through this whole “Together for the Gospel” project by desiring to practice all the conclusions that this meeting would have for his Baptist convictions. Let me clarify…

John Piper wants to work towards a greater unity for the universal Church that supersedes denominational boundaries. In doing this, he has put aside some of his Baptistic convictions (this is how he’s being inconsistent) and begun to work together with other ministers who believe and preach the same Gospel, yet are not rightly baptized (according to Baptist views). Since he has started down this road, he has taken part in the above noted conference that seeks to bring Gospel preaching ministers, both paedobaptist and credobaptist, together under the same banner of ministry and worship. With this background information I would now like to clarify where the title of my post is going…

Mark Dever and Al Mohler just DO NOT get it. If you read the article below by Sam Storms it will deal sufficiently with their position and what is wrong with it. How can Dever and Mohler even start to take part in this kind of conference with such sectarian points of view? I just don’t see how it is possible! If they are not willing to take communion with their paedobaptist brothers, then they are just as Landmarkist as any of the other historic Landmark Baptist that has ever lived. But I thought most Baptists today were past the times of Landmarkism? And if most Baptists are past their Landmark heritage, then all of us who are Baptists must call for a new paradigm when thinking about Church Membership and the Sacraments/Ordinances and the unity of the broader, visible Church of the living God. Please read Sam’s E-mail below to get the full picture of what I’m talking about.

I would love to hear your comments on this, so please leave them!

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

————-

Continue reading Mark Dever and Al Mohler don’t get it →

Apologetics, Calvinism, Debate, Reforming, Systematic Theology, Theology

Does God Cause Sin or Just Allow It?

This question was brought up recently over at the Desiring God blog. Here are the resources that Abraham shared in the post…

If God is sovereign over evil, can it be said that he causes it? Or does he just allow it? Is there really a difference? These are some of the questions we’ve received in response to John Piper’s article about the bridge collapsing and the post on his upcoming sermon series.

I expect the sermons he’ll preach over the next few weeks on God’s power over sin and his purposes in it may answer some of these questions. Until then, you may find the following resources helpful:

I also want to reference a post I made a while back on the what type of explanation is Biblically and logically acceptable when talking about God’s relationship to sin and His “permissive will”. Here is that post.

Enjoy the reading and please let me know your thoughts below!

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

Calvinism, Current Events, Debate, Reforming, SBC News, Testimonies, Theology

Where’d all these Calvinists come from?

Mark Dever

Mark Dever has finally finished his series on answering the question above. It’s very interesting and thought provoking. Below you will find the top 10 reasons that have spurred on the Calvinistic resurgence over the past several years. Read them and let’s discuss!

1 ) Charles Spurgeon

2 ) Lloyd-Jones

3 ) Banner of Truth Trust

4 ) Evangelism Explosion

5) Inerrancy Controversy

6 ) Presbyterian Church in America

7 ) JI Packer

8 ) RC Sproul and John MacArthur

9 ) John Piper

10) The rise of secularism and decline of Christian nominalism

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

[HT: Unashamed Workman]

Current Events, Debate, History

Gay Christian wins job tribunal against Church of England

This news is certainly not a good thing for the Church of England. I absolutely do not know what would happen if the US governments started implementing these types of things. I could only assume that faithful churches would end up going underground. But thankfully that time is not yet upon us and hopefully will not be upon us any time soon.

Pray that this many finds the judgment of God on his life so that he will repent and stop his deadly sinning.

What do you think the Church of England should do?