The Constitution Is My Speech Permit

The Constitution Is My Speech Permit

My former attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) recently filed a lawsuit they never should have had to file. In the suit, they are representing a Christian student group at North Carolina State University (NCSU). At issue is an NCSU policy requiring a permit for any kind of student speech or communication anywhere on campus. This policy is a direct affront to the First Amendment, which is the only permit needed to speak on a public university campus.

The policy itself is outrageous. To make matters worse, NCSU only selectively enforces the policy as they did against the plaintiffs, Grace Christian Life, which is a registered student organization. Elevating audacity to a Zen art form, petty university officials told these Christians that they needed a permit to speak with other students in, of all places, the student union.

The controversy began in September of 2015 when NCSU officials demanded members of Grace Christian Life stop approaching other students in the Talley Student Union to engage in religious discussions or even to simply invite them to attend Grace Christian Life events. So the group cooperated and obtained a permit to set up a table in the student union in January.

When Grace Christian Life set up its “approved” table they were told that they could speak with other students either from a) behind the table or b) anywhere in the room. However, when the students left the table on the permitted date, a member of the Student Involvement Office approached them and told them they must stick with option “a” and remain behind the table.

The legally insurmountable problem for NCSU is that the university has not placed the same restriction on any other group. Grace Christian Life members observed and wisely documented other groups freely speaking with other students and handing out literature. These groups have done so either without a permit or outside of the area reserved by their permit. The suit alleges that the groups have done so in full view of the very same officials that stopped Grace Christian Life from engaging in their First Amendment protected activity.

NCSU claims authority to do this under University Regulation 07.25.12, which requires a permit for speech the policy defines as “any distribution of leaflets, brochures, or other written material, or oral speech to a passersby (sic)….” Furthermore, the policy specifies that any person “wishing to conduct any form of solicitation on University premises must have the written permission of Student Involvement in advance.”

The NCSU policy is so broad that it makes no distinction between commercial and non-commercial speech such as the religious speech at issue in the case at hand. To borrow a phrase from the late Justice Scalia, if this policy is narrowly tailored it is by the standards of Omar the Tentmaker rather than Versace.

The NCSU speech permit controversy is just the latest in a seemingly endless string of embarrassing episodes on our nation’s campuses. Each episode is just another pathetic re-run with precisely the same plot:

A university policy says ones thing. The Constitution says another. The university maintains that their handbook trumps the Constitution. The court rules that the Constitution trumps the handbook. In the wake of an embarrassing defeat brought on by willfully uneducable educators, the public is left footing the bill for attorney fees and damages.

To make matters worse, this incident never could have taken place at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). After years of trampling the First Amendment, UNC-CH got rid of all of its unconstitutional policies – thus earning a “green light” rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The people at FIRE only give these ratings to schools without any policies that threaten free speech. Sadly, only 22 of our nation’s universities have earned that “green light” distinction.

It is a sad irony that a progressive campus like UNC-CH now shows greater tolerance for Christian speech than a more conservative university like NCSU. For that reason alone, alumni should demand that NCSU administrators stop defending the indefensible and tarnishing the school’s reputation.

After years of reporting on campus free speech cases, I have come to realize that most college administrators need to be sent back to high school to take basic civics. Those who still don’t get it need to be schooled in a court of law.

 

Dr. Mike Adams is a Professor of Criminology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and author of several books including Letters to a Young Progressive:  How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand.

This column was originally published at TownHall.com: http://bit.ly/2DRJQV8

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. CONSISTENCY “A resident in a seaside hotel breakfast room called over the head waiter one morning and said, “I want two boiled eggs, one of them so undercooked it’s runny, and the other so overcooked, it’s about as easy to eat as rubber; also grilled bacon that has been left on the plate to get cold; burnt toast that crumbles away as soon as you touch it with a knife; butter straight from the deep freeze so that it’s impossible to spread; and a pot of very weak coffee, lukewarm.”

“That’s a complicated order, sir,” said the bewildered waiter. “It might be a bit difficult.”

The guest replied, “Oh, but that’s what you gave me yesterday!”

Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”

  1. PARENT AUTHORITY “The most popular TV shows of the 1960s through the 1980s consistently depicted the parent as the reliable and trusted guide of the child. That was true of The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s; it was true of Family Ties in the 1980s. But it’s not true today. Looking through the list of the 150 most popular TV shows on American television right now, I did not find one that depicts a parent as consistently reliable and trustworthy.

It’s tough to be a parent in a culture that constantly undermines parental authority. Two generations ago, American parents and teachers had much greater authority. In that era, American parents and teachers taught right and wrong in no uncertain terms. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Those were commands, not suggestions.

Today, most American parents and teachers no longer act with such authority. They do not command. Instead, they ask, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” The command has been replaced by a question.”

Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”

  1. POPULISM From a May 26, 1792, let­ter from U.S. Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Alexan­der Hamil­ton to Vir­ginia of­fi­cial Ed­ward Car­ring­ton:

“On the whole, the only en­emy which Re­pub­li­can­ism has to fear in this Coun­try is in the Spirit of fac­tion and an­ar­chy. If this will not per­mit the ends of Gov­ernment to be at­tained un­der it—if it en­gen­ders dis­or­ders in the com­mu­nity, all reg­u­lar & or­derly minds will wish for change—and the dem­a­gogues who have produced the dis­or­der will make it for their own ag­gran­dize­ment. This is the old Story.

If I were dis­posed to pro­mote Monar­chy and over­throw the State Gov­ern­ments, I would mount the hobby horse of pop­u­lar­ity—I would cry out usurpa­tion—danger to lib­erty etc. etc.—I would en­deavor to pros­trate the National Gov­ern­ment—raise a ferment—and then “ride in the Whirl­wind and di­rect the Storm.”

— Wall Street Journal 3-9-16

  1. PEERS “The more uncertain people are—and the higher the stakes involved—the more vulnerable they are to the sort of cue taking that leads to herd behavior. That’s why teenagers are presumably more likely to succumb to peer pressure than adults. They have less experience to draw upon when evaluating the pros and cons of conforming, and the stakes are higher.”

Excerpt From: Belsky, Gary. “Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them.”

  1. TYRANTS “It is in con­nec­tion with the de­lib­er­ate ef­fort of the skill­ful dem­a­gogue to weld to­gether a closely co­her­ent and ho­mo­geneous body of sup­port­ers that the third and per­haps most impor­tant neg­a­tive ele­ment of selec­tion en­ters. It seems to be al­most a law of hu­man na­ture that it is eas­ier for peo­ple to agree on a neg­a­tive pro­gram—on the ha­tred of an en­emy, on the envy of those bet­ter off—than on any pos­i­tive task. The con­trast be­tween the “we” and the “they,” the com­mon fight against those out­side the group, seems to be an es­sen­tial ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit to­gether a group for com­mon ac­tion. It is con­sequently al­ways em­ployed by those who seek, not merely support of a pol­icy, but the un­reserved al­le­giance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the great ad­van­tage of leav­ing them greater free­dom of ac­tion than al­most any pos­i­tive pro­gram. The en­emy, whether he be in­ter­nal, like the “Jew” or the “ku­lak,” or ex­ter­nal, seems to be an in­dis­pens­able req­ui­site in the army of a to­tal­i­tar­ian leader.”

— Friedrich Hayek, “The Road to Serf­dom” (1944)

  1. MARCH MADNESS “Sports gamblers are fooled by momentum. Colin Camerer, a Caltech professor of behavioral economics, found that winning and losing streaks affected point spreads. Bets placed on teams with winning streaks were more likely to lose, and bets placed on teams with losing streaks were more likely to pay off. In other words, gamblers systematically overvalued teams with winning streaks and undervalued those with losing streaks.

Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

  1. BIBLE VOTER’S GUIDE For whom should you vote? Read Psalm 15.

— Dave Berry

  1. WONDERFULLY MADE “Human eyes are composed of more than two million working parts and can, under the right conditions, discern the light of a candle at a distance of fourteen miles. The human ear can discriminate among some 400,000 different sounds within a span of about ten octaves and can make the subtle distinction between music played by a violin or viola. The human heart pumps roughly one million barrels of blood during a normal lifetime, which would fill more than three supertankers.”

Excerpt From: Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind (15th anniversary repack).”

  1. I’M OUT ON BOOKS!

– 42% of college grads never read another book after college.

– 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.

– Reading one hour per day in your chosen field will make you an international expert in 7 years. (robertbrewer.org)

  1. ALL THERE IS? “Those who believe that this life is the only reality are likely to be led to one or more of three negative conclusions about life:

1: Hedonism, If this life is all one has, then it is quite logical to live a life devoted to self-gratification.

2: Utopianism. Idealistic people who believe that this life is all there is reject hedonism. But they may embrace a far more dangerous ideology—utopianism, the desire to make heaven on earth. Hence the attraction of utopianism to so many twentieth-century radicals who have rejected Judaism and Christianity.

In light of the hells on earth that secular Utopians have produced, it is clear just how important the deferring of Utopia to a future world is. Had people like the Bolsheviks and millions of other secular radicals not tried to create heaven on earth, they would not have created hell here.

3: Despair. In light of the great physical and emotional pain that so many people experience, what is more, likely to induce despondency than believing that this life is all there is? The malaise felt by so many people living in modern Western society is not traceable to material deprivation but, at least in part, to the despair induced by secularism and its belief that this world is all there is. That is why peasants with religious faith are probably happier than affluent people who have no faith (and why more affluent secularists, not the poor, are generally the ones who start radical revolutions).”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

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4 Pieces of Wisdom from a Street Level Apologist

By Billy Dyer

One reason I believe in Christianity is because it speaks of reality closer than any other worldview. This isn’t the only or even the main reason, but it is one of the reasons. Even if Christianity is not true (I do not doubt Christianity) I am convinced that atheism is wholly false. That is because atheism contradicts the real world at every turn. I try to point this out to skeptics all the time, and I’ve learned a lot about how to deal with people. Here are four observations I’ve made about our culture.

  1. Understand our culture is hypocritically skeptical about history

    Have you ever noticed that modern man is very skeptical about what happened in history? Of course, he isn’t skeptical at all about the information we have in the Present. As if the present is some sort of infallible guide to truth. To our culture, it seems as if the present contains the whole field of vision for truth. That is, if we believe it today then it must be true. Furthermore, they have the snobbery of believing that ancient man has nothing to teach us. But what I find most interesting is that this skepticism about history only goes back so far. Once you get back to the pre-historic days then somehow history becomes a matter of science, and we all know science is infallible. Therefore, the study of dinosaurs is reliable, but the study of the early church are ransacked with an error.

  2. Realize they have a strong distrust of ancient text

    Modern man just cannot stomach the concept that the Bible has been copied. If it has been copied then assuredly it has to have been corrupted many times over. Admittedly this is a difficult topic to address not due to the evidence being in their favor but because of time. That is, we simply do not have the time, during those moments of objection, to sit down and teach them about textual criticism. At the same time, though, we can use their faith in science to our aide. They do call textual criticism a science. Therefore, we can ask the skeptic, “why should you doubt the science of textual criticism if their data findings conclude that the Biblical text has been preserved?”.

  3. Any sense of sin is virtually lacking

    The Apostles went into the world of pagans to preach the Gospel. It was full of mystical religions which worshipped the dead, conjured up spirits, had ancestor worship, idol worship, gross immorality, etc… But at least they had a concept of moral obligations. That is why the Gospel was called “good news.” For the pagans finally understood they could be truly forgiven for what they knew they had done wrong. I know it may seem weird to think about, but please think about it for a minute. A person can be highly immoral in the Christian sense yet still have an understanding of a moral code. I’ve noticed this in my study on gangs. They are very wicked people. In fact, if women want to enter the gang, they have to allow themselves to be raped by all the members as an initiation rite. Men sometimes have to kill an innocent person or allow themselves to be brutally beaten to show their loyalty. As wicked as this may be they still have a moral code. There are a set of rules that they still abide by. In our day and age, America is forsaking the concept that morals even exist. As apologists, we don’t even have grounds to start on to talk about sin. We have to convince the world that sin, in any sense of the term, even exists first. They do not want to know if they can be acquitted for sin but whether God can be acquitted for creating such a world as this. 

  4. We must learn the language of our audience

    Not too many Bible students have had the opportunity to study this out, so I am just going to mention it here. But the New Testament authors actually took words from the contemporary culture and redefined them to fit what they were teaching. I think this is brilliant because it builds a bridge of understanding. That is, we can take a concept that they do understand simply help show them the fuller truth of the nugget they seem to already agree with. This is why I try to stay away from using Christian-Eze language when talking to non-church going people. That is a language that is virtually only understood by Church people (atonement, propitiation, justification, sanctification). Don’t get me wrong. We shouldn’t ignore the concepts. I am only imploring you to speak of the concepts using words that make sense to your audience. If you cannot translate your theology into the common man’s vernacular, then you are too confused about theology to teach it. So instead of saying God “justifies” us, we can say God acquits us. When speaking of “God’s wrath” I often use the illustration of a bounty hunter. We are criminals who are being tracked down by the bounty hunter known as God’s wrath, and He always catches his victim. But God has provided a means of payment to satisfy this bounty hunter, and it is only through Jesus. Another word to stay away from is “faith” When our culture hears faith they think of a blind leap in the dark or believing in spite of the evidence. Instead, I like the word trust because our audience understands it and it actually better defines the Greek word.

If you keep these four things in mind, it will help you to know your audience and present the case for Christ better.

For more articles like 4 Pieces of Wisdom from a Street Level Apologist visit Billy’s website: Dyerthoughts.com 

Billy Dyer is a CrossExamined Instructor Academy Graduate.

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What Exactly is a Miracle? 3 Things Your Kids Should Understand

What Exactly is a Biblical Miracle? 3 Key Things Your Kids Should Understand

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By Natasha Crain

A few weeks ago in our family worship time, we were studying the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (Matthew 14). After we finished the story, I asked what I thought was a pretty straightforward question: “So, how did Jesus feed 5,000 people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish?”

Kenna responded, “He must have cut the bread and fish into little tiny pieces to feed that many people!”

It was such a simple and logical answer, but it said so much about her young understanding of miracles. A million coloring pages of Jesus walking on water (which I’m pretty sure is the count coming home from Sunday school in the last couple of years) won’t teach our kids some basic concepts central to the understanding of biblical miracles.

Here are three key things our kids need to understand about the nature and purpose of miracles in the Bible.

1.    Miracles are supernatural.

One of the most common pejorative statements I see atheists make is that Christians believe someone can walk on water, a dead man can come back to life, animals can talk, and so on. The underlying assumption is that Christians foolishly believe these things are possible within the bounds of our natural world and its laws when clearly we should see that they aren’t.

This is not a correct understanding of biblical miracles. Christians do NOT believe that miracles are naturally possible, just as atheists do not. We agree! The point of difference is that Christians believe miracles are possible on a supernatural level, and atheists don’t believe a supernatural level even exists.

I realize this distinction sounds a little theoretical, but it’s very important and actually quite simple to explain to kids in a practical sense. I told my kids (age 4) that if Jesus merely chopped the bread into 5,000 pieces, that would be something anyone can do because that is how our world works (when you chop many times, it makes many pieces). What Jesus did was a miracle because it was something that can’t be explained by how we know our world works; food doesn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere! Jesus could do miracles because He had the power of God, and anything is possible for God. God is not limited by how our world works.

2.    Miracles proved who Jesus was.

This is the million dollar point that I don’t think I really understood the significance of until a couple of years ago when I started reading apologetics.

Jesus needed to do something while He was on earth to provide evidence (yes, evidence!) that He truly was the son of God. Think about it – He was making bold claims of divinity; how could people know that what He said was true?

Jesus didn’t just tell people to have “faith” that what He was saying was true. He used miracles – acts not possible by someone without God’s power – to prove it. Jesus understood the need for evidence to legitimize His claims. The resurrection was the ultimate miracle that proved to His followers that He was who He said He was.

To demonstrate this to my kids, I put on a mini-act where I told them I was God. I claimed that I wanted them to eat cookies every day because it’s good for them and that they needed to listen because I was God. They laughed and said they didn’t believe me because I’m not God! I told them over and over that I’m God. After a while, we talked about what it would have been like for Jesus’ friends to hear Him say He was the son of God. They had to have a way of knowing He wasn’t just a regular person saying that (like mommy was in the cookie example). Jesus did things only God could do to prove He really was God.

3.    Miracles are still historical events.

The disciple Thomas did not believe that the other disciples had seen a resurrected Jesus. He said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).

When the resurrected Jesus appeared to Thomas, Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus replied, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

This is an incredibly rich passage for Christians. Even though miracles are outside of our scientific understanding and laws, they are observable by witnesses and have natural/historical outcomes. The apostles historically observed the miracle of the resurrection, which led to a conviction so strong that they were willing to die for their beliefs. Their willingness to die was undoubtedly based in large part on their knowledge that they had witnessed the resurrection miracle.

We demonstrated this to our kids by talking about how difficult life was for the apostles after Jesus died. The miracles He did were so amazing that the apostles had no doubt that Jesus was God and they were willing to do whatever it took – endure beatings, jail, and death – to tell the whole world about Him. Today we know about Jesus in large part because of what the apostles did after witnessing His miracles!

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts – what else should kids know about miracles?

For more articles like What Exactly is a Biblical Miracle? 3 Key Things Your Kids Should Understand visit Natasha’s website at ChristianMomThoughts.com

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2QcW15h

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. 951. POTENTIAL Out in West Texas there is an old place called the Yates Pool. During the Great Depression there was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Mr. Yates. He wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.Day after day, as he grazed his sheep in West Texas, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract. At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day. Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief.  He was a future multi-millionaire living in poverty.  The problem?  He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.The same can be said for those who “sit” on their talents and thus their potential to be successful in all facets of life. “Dig deep” to get the most out of your talents.

-C. Seidman

  1. OUR KIDS: GO OR SEND?  “Go” kind of means you just leave, you’re untethered, you break away from the moorings and just float around out there. Gilman football guys, we don’t go. We’re sent. Being sent has a whole different connotation. ‘Sent’ means you’ve got support. ‘Sent’ means you’ve got a home. ‘Sent’ means you have a purpose. ‘Sent’ means you can always come back. Being sent means people love you. It means you go out like a warrior because you’ve got something to do. And when you get it done, you come back to your home people because they’re all there waiting for you. It’s a sense of community and connectivity.”

Excerpt From: Marx, Jeffrey. “Season of Life.”

  1. LEAP! Even though the standard calendar year is 365 days, the Earth actually takes 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds to go completely around the sun. (This is called a solar year.) In order to keep the calendar cycle synchronized with the seasons, one extra day is (usually) added every four years as February 29th. The Julian calendar (established by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE) introduced the Egyptian solar calendar to the Roman world, standardized the 365-day year, and created the predecessor to our current leap year. February 29th was not reflected on the Julian calendar, rather February 23 was repeated every four years. You may be asking, “The solar year is not a full 365 days and 6 hours, so what about those extra 11 minutes and 14 seconds?” An additional calendar reformation in the 1500s added a special rule to adjust for this discrepancy. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII created a slightly modified calendar to better account for leap days. Called the Gregorian calendar, this new system said that no century year (like 1900) would be a leap year except for centuries divisible by 400 (like 2000).

From: Dictionary.com

  1. TRUTH OR LIE “One way to distinguish truth from all its counterfeits is by its modesty: truth demands only to be heard among others while its counterfeits demand that others be silenced.” –Sydney Harris
  2. REAL VIRTUE “Loving means to love that which is unlovable or it is not virtue at all; forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable or it is no virtue at all; faith means believing in the unbelievable or it is no virtue at all. And to hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all.” — G.K. Chesterton
  3. NOTHING MORE THAN FEELINGS  “Our secular age has raised a generation that believes that feelings should be the primary guide to one’s behavior. That is why, in the relatively rare instances that secular schools have decided to make values a part of their curriculum, they never actually teach values. Rather they have offered courses in “values clarification,” which consist of students sitting around clarifying their feelings about stealing, looting, etc. The substitution of feelings for standards also explains why so many people (not only students) would not save a human stranger before their dog whom they love.

Thank God my son answered, “Because it’s against the Ten Commandments.” If all our children did, we could look to the future with far greater optimism. I would like all young people to think that stealing is wrong. But I would sooner trust those who also believe that God thinks it is wrong.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

  1. NO RESPECT “With regard to parents and children: the authority of parents, and, even more significantly, the importance of parents, in the lives of their children has declined substantially.

More than 50 years ago, Johns Hopkins sociologist James Coleman asked American teenagers this question: “Let’s say that you had always wanted to belong to a particular club in school, and then finally you were asked to join. But then you found out that your parents didn’t approve of the group.” Would you still join? In that era, the majority of American teenagers responded No. They would not join the club if their parents did not approve. In that era, for most kids, the opinion of parents mattered more than the good regard of same-age peers.”

Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”

  1. FREEDOM “As Montesquieu and Tocqueville both pointed out, freedom may be maintained at the level of the Constitution but still be lost at the level of the citizens.

Liberty is therefore a marathon and not a sprint, and the task of freedom requires vigilance and perseverance if freedom is to be sustained. If the revolution’s winning of freedom was a matter of eight years and the Constitution’s ordering of freedom was completed in thirteen years, the challenge of sustaining freedom is the task of centuries and countless generations, including our own.”

Excerpt From: Guinness, Os. “A Free People’s Suicide.”

  1. INVESTIGATE GOD “If your [investigation] fails to turn up any evidence of God, then your quest hasn’t lost much of anything and you have proven your open-mindedness. On the other hand, if you do experience an increased sense of the reality of God and the power of faith in God, you’ll have gained a relationship and dimension to life that changes everything on your journey.”

Excerpt From: Kemp, Jeff. “Facing the Blitz.”

  1. TIME “Time is too slow for those who wait. Too swift for those who fear. Too long for those who grieve. Too short for those who rejoice. But for those who love – time is eternity.”

— Poet Henry van Dyke

 

 

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Don’t Expect Your Kids to Care What the Bible Says Unless...

Don’t Expect Your Kids to Care What the Bible Says Unless You’ve Given Them Reason to Believe It’s True

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By Natasha Crain

A mom left a comment on one of my older posts the other day that said, “It sounds like you are teaching your kids to question the Bible. We should never teach our kids to question the Bible!”

To that I say…Of course we should.

Let’s not get confused, however, by what it means to “question” the Bible. To ask questions about something doesn’t mean to doubt it by default. Neither default acceptance nor default rejection is the response of a critical thinker.

To encourage our kids to question the Bible means to encourage them to examine it fully so they can determine its truth value for themselves.

This is a spiritual process so sorely lacking in most kids’ (and adults’) lives today.

Our kids learn a selection of key Bible stories throughout their childhood, but what do they learn about the Bible–why they should even believe those stories?

Typically, next to nothing.

Yet, parents and church leaders spend years preaching to kids from the Bible, assuming those kids should and will accept it at face value. It takes just a few skeptics to throw darts at that face value before kids make the point of this “atheist pig”:

Don’t expect your kids to care what the Bible says unless you’ve taken the time to help them understand why there’s good reason to believe it’s true.

In Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side, I wrote 8 chapters to help you do just that. Of course, there are many other possible topics to address on the Bible’s veracity, but I selected these because they are the most pertinent and the most frequently attacked by skeptics.

Here’s an overview of these 8 key questions you should be teaching your kids to ask of the Bible.

1. How were the books in the Bible selected?

Skeptics claim: In the first centuries after Jesus, there were many rival versions of Christianity, but the representative writings were suppressed by those in power. Our New Testament books represent the version of Christianity that happened to win over time. The winning books weren’t picked until some 300 years after Jesus’ death, and they won because they found political favor at the time.

Kids need to understand: That there were many early Christian writings, how the early church leaders sifted through those writings over time, and how the books of our Bible today were eventually deemed authoritative.

This is explained in Chapter 25 of my book.

2. Why were books left out of the Bible?

Skeptics claim: There are many “gospels” missing from the Bible which give equally valid but completely different views of Jesus than the one we have. If these books had made it into the Bible, Christianity would mean something very different today.

Kids need to understand: Why the mere existence of dozens of early Christian writings that never made it into the Bible says absolutely nothing. The question they need to be able to confidently answer is whether or not any of those writings can legitimately claim spiritual authority by way of connection to Jesus and His apostles.

This is explained in Chapter 26 of my book.

3. How do we know we can trust the Bible’s authors?

Skeptics claim: The gospels were written decades after Jesus lived by anonymous authors based on growing legends and unreliable oral history.

Kids need to understand: Why we can be confident that the gospels are based on reliable, eyewitness testimony.

This is explained in Chapter 27 of my book.

4. How do we know the Bible we have today says what the authors originally wrote?

Skeptics claim: The Bible has been copied, edited, copied, edited, copied, edited, etc. so many times since the original authors wrote their content that we have no way of even knowing what the books we have should say. (See the quote on the image at the top of this post from one actor making this claim.)

Kids need to understand: Why thousands of copies of early manuscripts and hundreds of thousands of differences between them actually don’t undermine what we know about Christianity.

This is explained in Chapter 28 of my book.

5. Does the Bible have errors and contradictions?

Skeptics claim: The Bible is filled with hundreds of errors and contradictions, clearly demonstrating it’s not the Word of God. (See bibviz.com as one example of this claim.)

Kids need to understand: How to evaluate alleged errors and contradictions (with special consideration of the alleged contradictions in the Gospels).

This is explained in Chapter 29 of my book.

6. Does the Bible support slavery?

Skeptics claim: God’s laws about slavery in the Old Testament show that, far from being a perfect moral Being, He actually supported this terrible institution–even sex slavery (see Exodus 21:7-11).

Kids need to understand: The issue of slavery in the Old Testament is very complex and requires an appropriate understanding of biblical context, culture, and history.

This is explained in Chapter 30 of my book.

7. Does the Bible support rape?

Skeptics claim: The Bible approves of rape.

Kids need to understand: The meaning of biblical laws on rape (Deuteronomy 22:23-29) and the biblical context for three key passages often used to support skeptics’ claims in this area (treatment of female war captives, treatment of the Midianite virgins, and treatment of the women of Jabesh-gilead).

This is explained in Chapter 31 of my book.

8. Does the Bible support human sacrifice?

Skeptics claim: God may explicitly condemn human sacrifice in the Bible, but He violates His own prohibition multiple times.

Kids need to understand: The theological background of God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the nature of child sacrifices of kings, Jepthah’s vow, the consecration of firstborn males, and Jesus’ death on the cross.

This is explained in Chapter 32 of my book.

So should you teach your kids to ask these and other questions about the Bible? Absolutely. If you don’t, skeptics will. And soon your kids won’t care what the Bible says any more than the “atheist pig”.

Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side is available from your local Barnes & Noble and Christian book retailers, as well as ChristianBook.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Amazon.com.

For more articles like Don’t Expect Your Kids to Care What the Bible Says Unless You’ve Given Them Reason to Believe It’s True visit Natasha’s site ChristianMomThoughts.com

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7 Questions from “Who is God”

7 Questions from “Who is God”

By Brian Chilton

This past Sunday, the third episode of Morgan Freeman’s show The Story of God as aired on the National Geographic Channel. The third episode dealt with how God is understood to be in various cultures and religions. Again, I am profoundly surprised at how well this show has been made. The show has not attacked any particular worldview, as I feared that it would. Rather, the show has taken a fairly neutral position while evaluating some major topics. This episode was no different. The third episode dealt with the issue “Who is God?” This article will seek to answer 7 questions that were raised during the show from a Christian perspective.

  1. Is there one God or several gods?

By sheer necessity, there is only one ultimate uncaused cause. If there were several gods or goddesses, one would have to ask “How did such a number of gods arise?” It seems to me that one would be forced to accept a first uncaused cause. While it is possible to accept a multiplicity of gods and goddesses, it makes better sense to accept that only one God exists. Why? Well, I think Thomas Aquinas answers this well. Aquinas states,

 “When the existence of a cause is demonstrated from an effect, this effect takes the place of the definition of the cause in proof of the cause’s existence. This is especially the case in regard to God, because, in order to prove the existence of anything, it is necessary to accept as a middle term the meaning of the word, and not its essence, for the question of its essence follows on the question of its existence. Now the names given to God are derived from His effects; consequently, in demonstrating the existence of God from His effects, we make take for the middle term the meaning of the word ‘God.’”[1]

From sheer necessity, only one God must exist. Thus, God could manifest himself in several ways, but in the end, there is but only one God.

  1. How does one connect to God?

If by connecting, one means relating to God, then one can connect with God in various ways. Morgan Freeman is right when he notes that it is sometimes difficult to relate to a transcendent God. However, God has given us means to relate to him. One way people connect with God is through prayer. Prayer is a means by which we can communicate with God and a way that God communicates with us.[2] Another way a person connects to God is through the written Word of God. The Scriptures are God’s revelation to all humanity. A third way a person can connect with God is through the intellect. A person can connect with God by learning more about God. Fourth, a person can connect with God through nature. As the psalmist notes, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).[3] Lastly, a person can ultimately connect with God through a relationship with Christ. When one receives Christ, the Bible tells us that the believer is filled with the Holy Spirit of God (John 14:15ff).

  1. Has God revealed himself to several people throughout the world?

There is but only one ultimate truth. However, this is not to say that God has not been trying to reveal himself to various peoples throughout the world. Solomon writes that God “has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). So, I am not saying that all religions are the same. Such is not logically possible. However, I feel it is quite possible that God has been trying to reveal himself throughout all of history. Ultimately, the full revelation came through Jesus of Nazareth, the “only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16).

  1. How do we know what’s divine?

Only God is truly divine in the purest sense. However, human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1-2). Thus, human beings bear the mark of divinity (although we are not divine). But in fact, all things bear the mark of God in reality because “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). So, only one person is truly divine (God), yet all things bear the imprint of the divine as God created all things.

  1. Can we imagine God?

In a way, yes. In a way, no. I think Norman Geisler puts it best. Geisler notes that “Although God can be apprehended, He cannot be comprehended.”[4] Paul writes, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away” (1 Corinthians 13:9). Thus, we cannot say that we know everything about God. If we could, we would be God.

  1. Does God indwell us?

We all bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26). However, God indwells each person who receives Christ as Savior. This person is known as the Holy Spirit.

  1. Can we experience God?

Yes! Absolutely we can! We experience the blessings of God every day. However, the only way to fully experience God is through a relationship with Christ Jesus. See also the answer to the second question.[5]

Much more could be said about God. In reality, the third episode of Freeman’s documentary as well as this article has focused more upon how humanity knows God. Such a knowledge of God is called revelation. God has revealed himself both through natural revelation (available to all) and special revelation (delivered to those of faith). If a person has not experienced God, it is highly advised that the person seek God and ask God to reveal himself.

Notes

[1] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.2.2., in Thomas Aquinas, Summa of the Summa, Peter Kreeft, ed., Fathers of the Dominican Province, trans (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 59.

[2] Some individuals have argued that God does not communicate with a person through prayer. With all due respect, I have found such arguments greatly lacking. God has spoken to a vast array of individuals in the Bible through the means of prayer (e.g. Habakkuk, Job, Elijah, Isaiah, and so on). To claim that God cannot speak to a person in prayer discredits the power and personal nature of God. However, I agree that one should always “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) to ensure that one is truly hearing from God.

[3] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture comes from the English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).

[4] Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology: In One Volume (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2011), 529.

[5] Also, check out the discipleship program Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby, and Claude V. King.

 

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as a pastor in northwestern North Carolina.
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2x7KBnT
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The Law of Identity & the Human Soul

By Tim Stratton

Do humans survive the death of their bodies? As a pastor, I have officiated several funerals over the past few years and I have attended many recently. This topic is always sure to come up while talking to the surviving relatives. Questions such as these are regularly asked: Will we see our loved one again? Although the body of our loved one has died, does their soul continue to exist?

The vast majority of humanity has believed in the soul throughout the centuries; however, many advocates of scientism (the presupposition that science is the only way to know reality) have caused much doubt regarding the existence of the soul today. It is important to remember that if the human soul does exist, it is something that, like God, cannot be discovered by science. The scientific method is only applicable to things in the natural universe, and science is impotent to test, discover, or explain things such as the laws of logic, mathematics, self-introspection, objective morality, the order of science itself, and anything outside of or transcending the natural universe. [1] These kinds of things would be other than nature and this is what philosophers refer to as “supernatural.”

I have come to the conclusion that after examining all of the data, we can confidently proclaim the human soul does exist. In fact, The Freethinking Argument deductively proves that not only do humans possess libertarian free will and that naturalism is false, but it also proves that the human soul does exist! This counts as evidence demonstrating the existence of the soul; however, I am often asked for more, and independent, evidence.

The Logical Law of Identity

There are other reasons to think we are more than just bodies and brains. JP Moreland provides a powerful philosophical case regarding the logical law of identity. He says, “If I have the property of being possibly disembodied, but my body does not have the property of being possibly disembodied, it logically follows that I am not my body.”[2]  That is to say, if it is not logically incoherent to conceive of the idea that I could exist apart from my body, then it logically follows that I am something other than my body.

According to the laws of logic, there is a property that I have that my body does not, and therefore, my body and I are not identical. My body and I are not the same thing. That is to say, I am not my body.[3]   This thing that I call, “I,” is something other than my body (or brain) and it is what I refer to as the soul.

To illustrate, think about this: suppose water is H2O and they are identical. Is there anything that could possibly happen to water that could not happen to H2O? No. Whatever temperature forces water to boil, will necessarily force H2O to boil, because they are identical.[4]

Here is the point: even if life after death is false, I am at least possibly the kind of thing that logically could exist after my body dies. It is not a logically incoherent concept. Therefore, if I am the kind of thing that could (at least possibly) exist disembodied, then, logically, I cannot be my brain or body.

Moreover, I am possibly disembrainable (after all, near-death experiences could possibly be true), but my brain is not possibly disembrainable. This proves I am not my brain because there is something true of me which is not true of my brain. Namely, I am the sort of thing that could survive death (even if I do not), but the brain cannot logically survive its destruction. Moreland provides a deductive syllogism to summarize his case:[5]   

  1. The law of identity is true: If x is identical to y, then whatever is true of x is true of y and vice versa.
  2. I can strongly conceive of myself as existing disembodied.
  3. If I can strongly conceive of some state of affairs S that S possibly obtains, then I have good grounds for believing that S is possible.
  4. Therefore, I have good grounds for believing of myself that it is possible for me to exist and be disembodied.
  5. If some entity x is such that it is possible for x to exist without y, then (i) x is not identical to y, and (ii) y is not essential to x.
  6. My body (or brain) is not such that it is possible to exist disembodied, i.e., my body (or brain) is essentially physical.
  7. Therefore, I have good grounds for believing of myself that I am not identical to my body (or brain) and that my physical body is not essential to me.

Conclusion

It makes sense to conclude, along with the Nobel Prize winning neurologist, Sir John Eccles, that I am a soul who uses a body and brain. This argument for the existence of the soul, along with the Freethinking Argument (and others), provides good reason to conclude that the Apostle Paul knew what he was talking about: “…  we are confident and satisfied to be out of the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). 

Do we survive the death of our bodies? You better believe it!

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

For more articles like The Law of Identity & the Human Soul visit Tim’s website Freethinkingministries.com

NOTES

[1] William Lane Craig in debate vs. Peter Atkins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U_NS9WsJ08 (Accessed 9-11-12)

[2] JP Moreland “In Defense of the Soul,” Biola University lecture on CD

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] J.P. Moreland’s syllogism is found in, The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 125-26

Randy Everist provides a detailed defense of this argument here and here. Be sure to check it out!

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Why 99 out of 10 Millennials Leave The Church?

Why 99 out of 10 Millennials Leave The Church?

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By Michael Sherrard

As the scintillating Richard G. Howe says, “three out of two people are bad at fractions.” Fewer, I imagine, are good at statistics. Statistics are useful and powerful in telling a story but are often misleading. In fact, statistics can be used to tell any story you want depending on how the questions are asked and the findings presented. And so goes it with the mass exodus of young adults leaving the church. We want to know why. Polls then are taken, findings are presented, and the blogopshere runs wild with them. Thus we find our social media filled with articles telling us the five reasons millennials have forsaken God. And this is fine. Do not misunderstand my point here. I only want to add one thought to this discussion, and it is this. People never give you the real reason they leave church.

When people leave the church, the reasons they offer either make themselves look good or the church look bad. Sometimes this is accomplished in the same reason. No one, though, ever offers their affair with fantasy football and their Sunday morning sport shows as a reason. No one ever tells you how they were not invited to a baby shower and let bitterness harbor in their heart for two years as they slowly removed themselves from the fellowship. And no one ever offers their lifestyle of sinful indulgence as the reason for abandoning the bride of Christ.

Excuse my boldness, but I think the leading factor in why millennials are leaving the church is sexual sin. This will never show up on a poll. I will be glad to find myself wrong about this. But I hear all too often the same story from youth ministers. The norm for youth groups across the country is to have all of their upperclassmen actively engaged in sex, or pornography, or both. It is rare, youth ministers tell me, to find a male high school student that has not had sex or been exposed to pornography. And it is nearly as rare to find a female upperclassmen that is still a virgin or abstaining from “not all the way” sexual activity. The message youth ministers want parents to hear is that they need to assume that their sons and daughters are playing with sex because they all are. In a culture that praises the self and is drowning in sexual sin, it is easy to see why millennials have lost the wonder of God and grown tired of His church.

Intellect is not driving teenagers out of the church. Their hearts are abandoning God long before their minds. It is right to equip teenagers with the reasons for Christian faith. But there is something that ought come before the cosmological argument. The greatest lesson the church needs in apologetics is holiness. Seeking to dispel blind faith is a waste of time if we are going to turn a blind eye to sin. Our response to sociological research will not result in our desired end without an acknowledgment of the problem of sexual sin in the church. For there is no way to make church relevant to people who have no interest in surrendering their lives. Or, I suppose there is a way, but it is not biblical. We could to contort our churches to affirm and facilitate self-centered and lustful desires of rebellious hypocritical pseudo-believers. But I don’t think that would be a good idea.

Holiness is the relevance of Christianity. For in it comes rest and peace and freedom, what we are seeking in sexual rebellion. Sin cannot be ignored. It always robs. It always kills. It always destroys. Two years of “harmless” sexual exploring will result in fifteen years of consequences. Sin’s darkness cannot withstand God’s light, but the ramifications of sin are long felt after forgiveness is embraced. Let us, therefore, lead our youngsters into greener pastures. Let us cause them to lie down in the freedom of God’s ways. Let us not look at the pretense of their rebellion. Rather, let us pray and preach and teach and allow God’s light to shine into their darkening hearts and show them what they actually need. Let us stitch their wounds and not just cover them.

Healing comes by recognizing the need for a doctor. It comes by recognizing you are sick. Many millennials have been sold the lie that sickness does not come from sexual sin. And truth be told, they are being sold the exact opposite, that health comes from the surrounding of your will to your sexuality. This lie has caused many teenagers to lay down their arms and sleep with the enemy. But actions do not merely remain actions. They condition the way we think. Thus marks sin’s slippery slope. Once sin enters your life, it spreads. It distorts the way we think and feel. And so, many teenagers now find the church to be not merely irrelevant, but immoral. They have embraced the lie that freedom comes in sex thereby making the church an oppressor. An exodus is only natural at this point. We must confront this.

We confront sin’s ruin, first, by surrendering our lives to God’s ways. Our lives must be marked by holiness if we are to lead others into it. “Neither coercion nor reward shape human behavior as much as a motivated attempt to resemble a specific person” (Ogden, Discipleship Essentials, p. 11). When teenagers see in us the value of surrendering to God’s ways, they will desire it as well. I wonder, how many teenagers have tasted the goodness of God through the holy lifetyle of an adult? I imagine it is a more common experience for teenagers to develop a distaste for church because of rampant hypocrisy than it is for them to crave the fruit seen falling from the tree of the righteous.

Second, we love teenagers. We take an interest in their lives. We build bridges of communication with them. We do not stand on a street corner and scream for their repentance. They are an abandoned generation. They have been left on their own to navigate a vast seas of choices. We thought google would be enough and accordingly withdrew our leadership from them. But we cannot isolate them. We cannot create a greater chasm by yelling at their sin. We must embrace them. They must feel our warmth and closeness.

In humility being armed with knowledge of God and his will, let us seek to restore an abandoned generation ravaged by sin’s folly. Let us gently invade their lives. They are a passionate army ready to change the world. They are not apathetic as many were in the previous generation. They desire truth, truth that will make this world better. They will go if we send them. But sexual sin is blocking the road of many. Therefore, let us help them remove the greatest obstacle in their path, and in so doing, see life abound in their midst and spread to every corner of this world.

*Ogden, Greg. Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007. Print.

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, author of Relational Apologetics, and the Director of Ratio Christi College Prep. RCCP is an organization that seeks to equip the church for effective evangelism by teaching high school students apologetics, fundamental Christian doctrine, and biblical evangelism.

For more articles like Why 99 out of 10 Millennials Leave The Church? visit Michael’s website at MichaelCSherrard.com

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4 Informal Logical Fallacies & Biblical Examples

4 Informal Logical Fallacies & Biblical Examples

By Billy Dyer

Is logic foreign to the New Testament? Is it a field of study we should reserve for the philosophers and let the theologians be by themselves? Of course not! Logic is logic and works in every field of reality. If God is the God of Truth, then we should expect to see Him, the inventor of logic, using logic. Humans didn’t invent logic, we simply use it, name it, and study it. Today I want to look at a few examples of Informal Logical Fallacies and how the Bible actually uses these principles correctly.

The Law of Non-Contradiction

  • It states, “Two contradictory statements cannot possibly be true at the same time and in the same relationship.”
  • For example, you couldn’t say, “The Earth is round and not round.”
  • This law is fundamental to thinking. You cannot have a conversation without it. We all use it intuitively. If someone denies this law, then you can point out they are actually using it right now. What do I mean? If I were to say, “There is a Law of Non-Contradiction,” and someone said, “No there is not” then they would be contradicting me to say there is none!!!
  • 1st John 2:4 says, “The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” John states it is a contradiction to profess to know Christ and yet not obey him. You cannot do both at the same time.

Hasty Generalization

  • This law points out the fallacy when we jump to a conclusion without sufficient data. We extrapolate from a small sample to create a general rule.
  • People/Organizations formulate rules or policies from accidental or exceptional situations.
  • For example…When the youth group has an overnighter, and someone breaks a window. The Church will then make a rule that we can never have another overnighter because they are destructive to the Church building.
  • Biblical Example…Someone reads a story of God destroying Sodom/Gomorrah and concludes He is a wrathful and mean God. They did not collect enough data to balance God’s characteristics.

Dicto Simpliciter

  • If hasty generalizations go from a small sample to a general rule dicto simpliciter is when you presume that what is true in general, under normal circumstances, is true under all circumstances without exception.
  • For example…The speed limit on the highway is 65 mph in Maryland. But police cars exceed that speed all the time. Well, they are not under normal circumstances if they are chasing an armed robber or responding to a call for help.
  • Biblical Example…I read an article a few years ago which denied that Enoch and Elijah were translated directly to heaven. What was their basis? Romans 5:12 which says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Their reasoning was this; If death spread to all men, then Enoch & Elijah couldn’t have circumvented death. The author was guilty of the dicto simpliciter fallacy for the Bible clearly says that a whole group of people are going to escape physical death if they are Christians when the Lord returns.

The Reductive Fallacy

  • This fallacy occurs when we attempt to reduce a complex entity to only one of its many aspects
  • Keywords that are generally used for this fallacy are “just,” “only,” “merely,” “simply,” “nothing but.”
  • For example…”Man is just an animal” or “Music is nothing but sound waves.” These states hold truth but not the whole truth. Man is more than just an animal and music is more than sound waves. My burp is a sound wave, but it surely isn’t music.
  • Biblical Example…Have you ever heard someone say, “God is love”? Would you agree or disagree? I guess as is we could agree with the statement but I might disagree with the intent behind the statement. When people use this phrase most of the time what they are really attempting to say is that “God is only love.” But God is also Holy. There is a balance to His nature (Romans 11:22).

The Church needs to be wary of using logical fallacies in our theology. If we want good theology, we need to use good logic. Can you think of better biblical examples than what I used?

For more articles like 4 Informal Logical Fallacies & Biblical Examples go to Billy’s website at DyerThoughts.com

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