Theology and Christian Apologetics Archives | CrossExamined.org

You may have heard the phrase, “turnabout is fair play.” If your opponent on the soccer pitch, football field, or basketball court is illegally pushing, shoving, and elbowing you, then it’s only fair that you can push back, right? Turnabout, as they say, is fair play. And as long as it’s not against the law, immoral, or physically harming anyone, then that principle might work fine at least for ball games and boardgames. But what about the game of politics?

Frank and I had a podcast on this topic too. Check it out at:
When Your Opponent Cheats, What Should You Do? | with Dr. John Ferrer

How far should we take this idea of, “turnabout is fair play?” A gentleman from Nigeria by the name of Austin sent us a question about this last week.

“Imagine that you’re in the ring of boxing with an opponent who is breaking all the rules and nobody is calling him to order, would you keep following the rules? To be more specific, this analogy is to capture the imbalance of political power between the muslim north and the christian south of Nigeria. As I’m sure you already know, the survival of Islam is hinged on political power and domination. Our muslim brothers are extremely political, while the christians are, for the most part, passive. But besides the political docility of the christians, our muslims don’t really play fair. For example, muslims go as far as registering underaged voters. This is one of the major reasons northern votes beat southern votes in federal elections, not that the number of muslims is above that of christians. There’s a lot more of their shenanigans that I’d rather not name here. The situation is far uglier than I’ve decided to capture at this present time… So, how do you see this? How do you play fair with an opponent who doesn’t play fair?”

Austin is clearly concerned for more than just apologetics. He yearns for justice. Beneath the looming weight of political corruption and injustice, he is staring down one of the largest militant fronts of modern day Islam. He’s rightfully concerned that religious and political opponents have rigged the system. Of course, he wants to do something about it!

If his opponents in the Muslim north are cheating and abusing the system to stay in power, then perhaps Christians in the South can use the same tactics to stand against the spreading Islamic caliphate. The Christians would have good motives. The other guys cheated first. So, is it okay to lie and cheat if the other guy is doing it?

In short, no.

While I sympathize with Austin in Nigeria, I can’t condone that behavior. He’s asking a practical question, of whether the “ends justify the means.” That axiom is the centerpiece of Utilitarianism[i], a non-Christian ethical theory coined by Jeremy Bentham. Sure, lying and cheating might help you win elections. And you might be cheating the same way your opponents are. But the ends don’t justify the means. The means need to be justified themselves.

Moreover, lying and cheating won’t preserve the integrity of the church or showcase the light of Christ to the world. Now, we’ll get into some exceptional cases later. But at this point, if you aren’t literally being forced lie and cheat, then you shouldn’t lie or cheat.

Heart check

Perhaps the best starting point for unpacking that answer is to do a heart-check. Ask yourself: Do you fear and love God more than anyone else?

“Do you fear and love God more than anyone else?”

By that I mean, do you fear God as the sovereign judge and King more than you fear anyone else? And do you love God as your heavenly Father, more than you love anyone else? When we can answer this heart-check with a resounding “Yes!” then we’re in a good position to face hardship and do the gritty work of apologetics.

This heart-check was Peter’s advice to first century believers. Apologists love to quote him in 1 Peter 3:15b, “always be prepared to give an answer.” But just before that classic call to defend the faith, Peter sets it inside a persecution context. In verse 14 he says, “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” Answering how to do that, Peter says to put Jesus first. “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord” (vs15a). The surrounding passage, 1 Peter 3:9-17[ii] reinforces this point saying, “do not repay evil with evil,” “or insult with insult,” “repay evil with blessing,” “keep [your] tongue from evil and lips from deceitful speech,” and “suffer for doing good” rather “than for doing evil.”

That’s easy for you to say

Of course, it’s easy for me to say all this. My job, my family, my way of life, are all safe. There are no political enemies or religious invaders beating down our door. My home church faces no real danger of conquest, at the hands of radical Muslims, militant Hindus, or even snarky atheists. It’s easy for me to tell folks to endure persecution heroically when it’s their persecution and not mine. That’s why I’m not speaking on my own authority. Apostle Peter said it first. I’m just agreeing with him. If I ever face persecution like my brothers and sisters in Nigeria are facing, I pray I’d have the courage to take my own advice, I pray I would follow St. Peter in honoring Christ as Lord and suffering well.

“Love and honor Christ as Lord, then suffer well.”

How do we do that?

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, “Okay, be righteous and don’t ‘sink to their level.’ I get it. But how do we do that?” That’s a great question. I’m glad you asked! Stay tuned for part 2 where I explain seven principles we should all follow when our opponent isn’t fighting fairly.

Footnotes:

[i] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/

[ii] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+3%3A9-17&version=ESV

Who Made God?

2. Does God Exist?, Atheism, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Bobby Conway

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with a skeptic only to be asked in gotcha fashion, “Well, who made God?” Asking the question, “Who made God?” is like asking, “How did Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata taste?” It just doesn’t fit. The question is a classic category mistake. God wasn’t made and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata can’t be tasted. Adding to this blunder, the famed atheist Bertrand Russell notoriously said, “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause.” Yet, it’s not true that everything must have a cause. Only that which begins to exist must have a cause. And herein God is perched up in a category all His own.

God is the uncreated Creator.

He is the beginning-less Beginner.

He is the uncaused Cause of all that began to exist.

Think about it. Everything that had a beginning had a cause. And every beginning had a Beginner. And every product has a Producer. And every initiative must have an Initiator. If there is an origin, there must be an Originator. And since there is a genesis, there is a Generator.

That generator my friend is, well, you guessed it.

God.

The Scriptures exclaim from the very first verse, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Far from being made, God is the maker of all things made.

Again, note the distinction. The difference between God and everything else that exists is everything else began to exist whereas God just exists. Do you remember what God said to Moses when He appeared to him in the burning bush? Moses said,

“If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-14).

What was God saying to Moses? He was revealing Himself to Moses as the self-existent one. As the one who wasn’t made. God was saying, “Moses, go tell them that the One who never began to exist sent you. The unmade One.”

Unlike us, God is what philosophers refers to as a necessary being, an independent being. And each of us, unlike God, are contingent beings and, therefore, dependent. The universe is also contingent because God spoke it into existence. This means that all things that began to exist are dependent on God for existence.

It turns out there is a problem with the question, “Who made God?” The word made can’t be said of God. For God is the unmade Maker. As expected, he’s in a league of his own.

Don’t Panic: A Step by Step Approach to Teaching Kids About God

Apologetics for Parents, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Shanda Fulbright

It never fails. When churched kids hit a certain age, I get panicked messages from parents. They usually start with, “We’re a Christian family, but my son doesn’t want to go to church anymore. He doesn’t believe in God.” Or, “I assumed my daughter was pro-life but she just told me women have the right to choose. How can this be when we are a pro-life family?”

These messages never come when the child is 8 or 9. I never hear about an 11 year old struggling to believe whether or not the Bible is true. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m just saying this isn’t the age where parents start to panic.

It’s usually around the time our kids are well into their teenage years that parents begin to notice our kids aren’t on board with the whole God, Jesus, and the Bible stuff. Why does it take so long to realize this? There are two main factors. First, we assume that because our kids go to church, they are adopting the beliefs of Christianity. Second, most parents aren’t being discipled, so it’s impossible to catch the discrepancies in the worldview our child actually has compared to a biblical worldview until something big happens – like the approval of abortion or a blatant disbelief in God.

This is where parents hit the panic button.

Is there hope for parents whose teenagers are about to walk away from Christianity? The good news: as long as we have Christ there is always hope. The reality: it’s not going to be as easy in the teen years as it would have been to teach them when they were younger. It will take diligence, and if diligence is what’s been missing all along, be diligent now.

The question is, what does diligent teaching look like in the 21st century?

Learning is a layered process.That means we must transfer knowledge strategically, layer by layer. There has to be a foundation laid and basic knowledge taught before anyone can understand larger concepts. This goes for students of any age. If we skip the foundation, there will be a gap in knowledge. In Christianity, the gap in knowledge is evident when Christians lack a biblical worldview. By the time parents hear their kids expressing a disbelief in God, the gap is already there and it’s likely because they skipped the foundational stage.

So, let’s discuss the three basic stages in the layered process of learning, no matter how old your kids are. Keep in mind that there are recommended age groups to begin each stage, but if you are just beginning to disciple your kids, this is the process from beginning to end.

The good news is that you can always begin at any stage, depending on where you left off. And if you have been doing this all along, keep plugging away knowing that in due time you will reap a harvest (Gal 6:9).

Foundational stage: God’s Word (suggested age – birth to primary)

The path to a biblical worldview begins with biblical literacy. The Bible talks about the word of God as the foundation on which to build (Matt 7:24-27). It also refers to the word of God as spiritual food. It is a necessity of life that all who follow the Lord must implement into their daily walk. But we can’t expect our kids to do this without help.

The approach we take to teaching our children is important because how we present the word of God will determine how they view the word of God. Is it important to you? Then it will be important to them. Do you believe it is the infallible word of God? Then they will too. If you present it as stories instead of historical narratives, then they will view it as a fictional story thrown into their bedtime routine. The language we use when we talk to our kids about God and His word matters. So present the word as a necessity, not as an option.

Connection Stage: God’s World (suggested age – adolescent to preteen)

When we teach apologetics to Christians, we must take a different approach than when we use apologetics to defend our faith with a secular audience. Middle schoolers must begin to make the connection that God’s word and God’s world are not in conflict. We will only be successful at adding this layer to our children’s learning if we laid the foundation of biblical literacy during the first stage.

What happens if we didn’t? The good news is that we can start now. Weave biblical truths into your instruction so that the apologetics concepts are tethered to Scripture. For example, kids need to know God’s nature of goodness in order to understand why He is the moral law-giver. Do a study on God’s attributes before you study the apologetics arguments. This will help fill-in the biblical literacy gaps missed in stage one. Just remember – saturate them with the word of God in every stage, not just the first stage. The word of God is at the core of Christian education.

It’s imperative that we ensure our middle schoolers see how God’s word and God’s world connect. Scientific evidence that points to God’s existence supported by biblical truths accomplishes this. This is where the Cosmological and Design Arguments come in handy. If we don’t help middle schoolers connect the word with the world, it’s likely they’re already questioning the validity of one and where they fit into the other.

Action Stage: Live God’s word in God’s world (suggested age – teens to adult)

How we view the world affects how we live. At this stage, it is important to help your teens make the connection between the word of God and how it applies to the issues of life. In other words, get comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations.

It is the goal to get them to this stage with a biblical worldview so that they draw from biblical truths when looking for the answers to life’s questions. Students who have been discipled and understand why there are good reasons to believe Christianity is true will begin to connect knowledge of God and His word to the understanding of God and His word, and live for God by His word. In fact, this is where the evidence of a biblical worldview is seen in the life of our kids. When the knowledge of all they’ve learned leads them to an understanding of it, they are able to live it. And that’s how we know what someone truly believes.

All too often, Christians compartmentalize the Bible and separate it from the real world. We must be willing to bring real world issues into our conversations with our teens. But I caution you not to wait for your teen to come to you. Open the door to hard conversations about gender and sexuality, abortion, co-habitation, and all of the hot-button topics that make parents cringe. Trust me. Once you get used to having hard conversations they won’t be so hard anymore and you will help your teen live the word in the world.

Successful parents have this in common

If you find your kids are older and they’re beyond the first and second stages suggested here, don’t panic. As I said before, as long as Jesus is in the equation there is always hope. However, the stages of teaching a biblical worldview don’t change:

First, lay the foundation of biblical literacy: God’s word.

Next, add the building block of apologetics: God’s world.

Finally, teach them to apply it: live the word in God’s world.

For those parents who are wondering if the opportunity to teach your kids has passed you by, I want to offer some encouragement. You are the most influential person in your child’s life and that will never change. Use that influence to go back and make up the ground you think you’ve lost. Because as I’ve said before, with Christ it is never too late.

It is our job as parents to make sure we do all we can to raise godly men and women. Our culture looks different today than the cultures before us, but the biblical mandate to parents has always been the same. God calls us to be diligent, and parents must answer the call.

Appearances Of Mary Vs. Jesus’ Resurrection Appearances

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

On the evening of April 2, 1968, a Muslim bus mechanic was working across the street from St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun, a district of Cairo, Egypt. Suddenly, something on the roof of St. Mary’s got his attention: a figure that looked like a young woman. The mechanic pointed it out to a few people nearby who saw the same thing. Concerned that the young lady was about to commit suicide, they called the police. A crowd gathered around the church to watch. Then, after just a few minutes, the woman suddenly vanished. As you can imagine, this got people talking.

At first the police tried to explain things away, saying it was just some light reflecting in a strange way from a street light – but many weren’t persuaded. A week later the female figure appeared on the roof again. The appearance of the woman lasted for a few minutes and then disappeared. Some people began to connect the dots: This is St. Mary’s church. The church is believed to be one of the locations that Jesus’ family stayed during their flight to Egypt. We’re seeing a shining female figure on the roof. Sure this must be the Mother of Jesus!

From there the appearances began to happen more frequently, at times lasting for hours. In some reports, the apparition appeared to be bowing toward the cross atop the church or blessing onlookers on the street below. Some of the faithful who came to tour the holy site reported to be healed of illnesses. The Coptic Orthodox Pope appointed a committee of high-ranking priests and bishops to investigate. On May 4th, the church issued an official statement confirming the apparitions as genuine.

The apparitions were witnessed by the Egyptian President. Some were recorded on film by newspaper photographers and Egyptian television. Police investigations found no apparent explanation. No device was found within a radius of fifteen miles capable of projecting the image, and many photos were taken of the alleged apparition from independent sources. With no alternative explanation and approval from religious and political leaders, the Egyptian government accepted the apparitions as true.

ARE APPARITIONS LIKE RESURRECTION APPEARANCES?

So why am I talking about the Marian apparitions of Zeitoun? It’s because scholars like Dale Allison and Bart Ehrman attempt to parallel these appearances with Jesus’ resurrection appearances. In fact, Allison says that they are in some ways better evidenced and yet he remains agnostic about them. Allison writes:

“Our knowledge of what happened in the days after Good Friday is depressingly sparse over and against our knowledge of what happened in Zeitoun. With respect to the latter, we have interviews with multiple eye-witnesses. We have photographs. We have on-the-spot, as-it-unfolded journalistic reports from religious and irreligious. We have a statement from an investigative committee. We have none of this, by contrast, with respect to Jesus’ resurrection, only a lamentable paucity of evidence and lack of detail at every turn. One wonders how, if we cannot solve the puzzle of Zeitoun, about which we know so much, we can solve the puzzle that is Jesus’ resurrection, about which we know so little.”

Bart Ehrman mostly agrees with Allison. He seemingly points out some inconsistency among resurrection apologists like William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, writing:

“it is striking and worth noting that typically believers in one religious tradition often insist on the “evidence” for the miracles that support their views and completely discount the “evidence” for miracles attested in some other religious tradition, even though, at the end of the day, it is the same kind of evidence (for example, eyewitness testimony) and may be of even greater abundance. Protestant apologists interested in “proving” that Jesus was raised from the dead rarely show any interest in applying their finely honed historical talents to the exalted Blessed Virgin Mary”

(How Jesus Became God) Ehrman doesn’t call them out by name, but these three prominent resurrection apologists are all committed Baptists.

When an Emailer asked about the parallel between Marian appearances and Jesus’ post-mortem appearances, Dr. Craig had his colleague Mike Licona respond to the reader’s question. Licona wrote:[i]

“In my debates with Ehrman, when he has raised the topic of Marian apparitions, I have responded that I do not doubt that the recipients saw something. What they saw is what I question. Elliot Miller and Kenneth Samples co-authored the book The Cult of the Virgin: Catholic Mariology and the Apparitions of Mary. In this book, they discuss the three major accounts of Marian apparitions: Lourdes, France; Fatima, Portugal; and Medjugorje, (mud·joo·jor·jee) Croatia. I know Samples personally. He has interviewed several of the seers to whom Mary has appeared in Medjugorje. Although Samples is a Christian whose Protestant theology does not incline him to believe that Mary has appeared to others, he is convinced that these seers have seen a spirit being. In fact, I had an opportunity to inquire further of Samples on the matter. He told me that several of the seers in Medjugorje continued to have visions of Mary. In fact, he was with one of the seers while he was experiencing such a vision, although no one else in the room saw her. Samples told me he asked the seer if Mary had ever spoken to him. The seer said she had, recommending a specific book which the seer was to read. When Samples looked up the title of the book, it was occultic. This led him to believe that a demonic spirit is what is appearing to the seers.”

I’m sure the “it’s the devil” hypothesis will offend Catholics and Orthodox Christians. I’d bet that Ehrman would be content to let them fight it out amongst themselves. Pitting Catholics vs. Protestants is a classic move made by skeptics going back to the Deist Controversy in the 17th and 18th century. Rather than denying the evidence, Licona refers to Samples’ theological argument, which seems to be based on some personal anecdotes and doctrinal inferences.

Even if you’re theologically opposed to the veneration of Mary, this evil spirit hypothesis is probably giving the devil more credit than due. While I’m a settled Protestant, I’m not automatically inclined to say that all Marian apparitions are either delusions, hoaxes or demonic because of my prior theological commitments. With enough evidence, my mind could be changed. But I don’t think Marian apparitions come anywhere near what we have for the resurrection. It’s more of an apples and oranges comparison.

WHAT WOULD BE EVIDENCE OF MARIAN APPARIATIONS?

What would convince me of Marian apparitions? Let’s think about it. Imagine if Mary appeared to a dozen people and ate several meals with them, they touched her hands, and she conversed with them. Now also suppose this group of twelve people were all Protestants, living in a country where converting to Catholicism could result in their arrest, torture, or death. That would move me a bit closer to accepting them.

But there’s a big problem. No one who has seen an apparition of Mary knew Mary before she died. There’s a tradition that she appeared to James the Son of Zebedee in Spain in 40 AD, but the evidence for this tradition is thin and Mary was probably still alive at that time. Those who believe in this appearance claim that she was supernaturally present in two places at once. The first recorded Marian apparition approved by the Catholic church was in 1555. Obviously Mary hasn’t been known by anyone personally for centuries, so there’s always at least the possibility that someone could be hoaxing these people in this proposed scenario.

People laughed when Robert Greg Cavin came up with his “twin brother” theory to explain away the resurrection. But Cavin had to come up with a theory to explain why the disciples thought they saw the risen Jesus, as they knew what Jesus looked like. They had hung out with him for three years.

But some might say that perhaps what the apostles saw was something like what people saw in Zeitoun. Maybe they experienced something like a bright light on a rooftop that they mistook to be Jesus and enthusiasm took its course from there. The problem with that is we can’t say that if we take the gospel accounts seriously. For they report multisensory group appearances extended across 40 days. These appearances involved conversations with Jesus, touching his wounds, and eating fish together. These aren’t the kinds of things you can be mistaken about.

Ehrman and Allison think that these accounts are embellished and unreliable, and so this is why they run this weak parallel. It’s not that they don’t think the disciples experienced appearances of Jesus of some sort. They do. This is because of what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that Peter, the Twelve, Paul, James and an unnamed 500 brothers all claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. But what the appearances were like isn’t something Paul goes into detail about. If the best evidence we have for the resurrection is the creed that Paul quotes to the Corinthians, then we’re left with a pretty vague report. Or to use Allison’s words, “depressingly sparse”. Vague appearances that were overinterpreted by the disciples would be consistent with the creed in 1 Corinthians 15.

If we’re going to defend the resurrection, we’re going to need to defend the detailed reports contained in the Gospels are at least what the early disciples reported. But because Licona will only use facts that 90% + of scholars agree upon — which include the likes of Allison and Ehrman — he’s not able to do that. In his big book on the resurrection, Licona writes:

“We may affirm with great confidence that Peter had such an experience in an individual setting, and we will see that the same may be said of an adversary of the church named Paul. We may likewise affirm that there was at least one occasion when a group of Jesus’ followers including “the Twelve” had such an experience. Did other experiences reported by the Gospels occur as well, such as the appearances to the women, Thomas, the Emmaus disciples, and the multiple group appearances reported by the tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 and John? Where did these experiences occur? Historians may be going beyond what the data warrants in assigning a verdict with much confidence to these questions.”

The Resurrection of Jesus, A New Historiographical Approach, Kindle location 3758

This is why I’m not a fan of the minimal facts approach. If we are willing to say that the appearances to the Emmaus disciples or Thomas are impossible to know historically because that’s what the scholarly consensus allows us to say is a minimal fact, then there’s a massive problem. But if we look at the Gospels closely and more fairly, I think we can know with some confidence that they are scrupulous, habitually honest and close up to the facts. They were not the kind of authors who would be prone to embellish things. Nor are they likely to be schizophrenic authors, showing all these signs of truthful testimony, but suddenly at other times consider themselves free to invent and change facts.

And so it looks like they recorded what was really originally claimed by witnesses about Jesus’ resurrection. And this was the apostles’ claim in the midst of persecution, so it would be unlikely that they were fudging the truth. See my playlist on the reliability of the Gospels for more.

So getting back to Marian apparitions. I don’t think it’s at all impossible to have evidence that has strong weight for Marian claims. Let’s suppose that two Protestants who had previously publicly criticized Marian doctrine both claimed at the same time to have seen a vision of a woman claiming to be Mary telling them that she was taken bodily into heaven. Neither had a prior history of mental illness. They destroyed their own Protestant careers and endangered their lives by claiming this.

Furthermore, suppose the woman in question instructed them to call each other and ask each other, “Did you have any strange experience in the last 24 hours?” And they independently did this. That would be evidence of the Marian claims, but it wouldn’t exactly be an analogy to Jesus’ appearances on earth. It would perhaps be more analogous to the conversion of Paul and James. Oddly enough, Dale Allison says nothing short of Mary appearing to him would convince him. I don’t think our standards need to be that absurdly high.

This whole Marian apparition analogy just doesn’t work when one takes a more maximal data approach to the Gospels. I might not be able to explain all Marian apparitions, but they’re not the same as the resurrection appearances in the Gospels. At best they make me say “huh. Maybe the world is a weirder place than I thought, and I don’t really know what to make of this.” But because there seems to be some vagueness about what these apparitions mean or where they originate from I don’t feel super inclined to believe them.

Footnotes:

[i] https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/appearances-of-mary-and-jesus-resurrection-appearances

SES president: Heretical Cambridge sermon claiming Christ had a ‘trans body’ is sign of evil in world today

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Judge Phil Ginn

‘I would much rather trust the true Christ than a blatantly false figment of someone’s misguided imagination’

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Parishioners at Trinity College chapel, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, were stunned and horrified when junior research fellow Joshua Heath preached a sermon claiming that due to select works of historical art, Christ had a “trans body.”[i]

Despite the cries of heresy during the sermon, Dr. Michael Banner, the dean of Trinity College, said Heath raised “legitimate” speculation about the gender of Christ, claiming his sermon “suggested that we might think about these images of Christ’s male/female body as providing us with ways of thinking about issues around transgender questions today.”

Judge Phil Ginn, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES, www.ses.edu), responded to this outlandish speculation, warning Christians against the false doctrines espoused by the misguided and to hold fast to the truth of the Gospel.

Ginn stated, “In the year 167 BC, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), the king of Syria, captured the city of Jerusalem and laid waste to the capitol of Judaism. In doing so, he desecrated the temple by sacrificing a pig on an altar to Zeus, which had been constructed over the holiest portion of the Jewish Temple. Sadly, desecration of holy places continues to this day despite the warning from 1 Corinthians 3:17 that if ‘any man defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy.’

Such is the case with junior research fellow Joshua Heath and even more unfortunately with Dr. Michael Banner, a Dean at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. As reported by Fox News, Mr. Heath apparently preached a sermon in which he claimed that works of art portraying the crucifixion and death of Jesus essentially contemplated the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ.’ Going even further in his malaise, Heath concluded from his observation of the paintings that the spear wound in Christ’s side ‘takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance.’ Cries of heresy arose from the crowd, but amazingly Dean Banner came to the defense of the blasphemy. Cambridge, of course, labeled the message as ‘thought provoking academic inquiry in keeping with open debate and dialogue.’

“I am sure that Mr. Heath is thankful that someone in authority like the Dean and the Cambridge University leadership came to his defense with their words of support. However, I would tend to lend greater credence to what the Apostle Paul had to say about heretical words and actions desecrating the holiness of God: ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth’ (Romans 1:18). Paul goes even further: ‘For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened’ (Romans 1:21). Finally, Paul says this in the last verse of Romans 1: ‘Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.’”

Ginn concluded, “At Southern Evangelical Seminary we are well familiar with the Latin phrase ‘Coram Deo.’ Simply put, it means to live your life as though you are doing so before the very face of God. We constantly are reminding ourselves and our students to live worthy of the calling of God on our lives. That is why we are standing steadfast in the truth of the Gospel. We hold fast to the inerrant and infallible word of God because we know that it is by the Word of God that our lives will be judged. My prayer is that Mr. Heath, Dean Banner, and all of Cambridge University will come to know the true Messiah who gave his life for the sins of the world and rose on the third day victorious over death. I speak for SES and myself when I say that I would much rather trust the true Christ than a blatantly false namby-pamby figment of someone’s misguided imagination.”

Judge Phil Ginn was appointed president of SES in April 2021 after a distinguished career as both a lawyer and a judge. Over the course of his 22-year judicial career, he was privileged to hold court in almost 50% of the county seats in North Carolina. He holds a B.A. from Appalachian State University, a J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Doctor of Ministry from Southern Evangelical Seminary. Prior to his appointment as SES president, Judge Ginn served as SES Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

SES is proud to announce the upcoming release of “Steadfast: In a World of Confusion, Know Why You Believe.”[ii] This new 10-week study for small groups doubles as a seminary primer course and will give every believer game-changing training for living the Christian faith in today’s world. The study will feature exciting sessions from select SES professors. For more information about the upcoming study, click here.

The mission of SES is to train men and women, based on the inerrant and infallible written Word of God, for the evangelization of the world and the defense of the historic Christian faith. SES offers a range of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees (along with several for-credit certificates) that uniquely integrate theology, philosophy, and apologetics to build a complete and systematic Christian worldview.

Footnotes:

[i] Cambridge dean defends sermon about Jesus’ ‘trans body,’ ‘vaginal’ side wound blasted as ‘heresy’

[ii] In a World of Confusion, Know Why You Believe STEADFAST 10-Week Small Group Apologetics Study

Can We Agree to Disagree on Predestination?

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By RYAN LEASURE

At Grace Bible Church, we have a statement of faith that all members must affirm. It’s a fine statement of faith (though a little long if you ask me). And it provides a nice summary of basic Christian belief. That said, not all doctrines are created equal. Some doctrines are absolutely essential while others are less important. How, then, should Christians “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) without contending for too much or too little?

In other words, how do we know which doctrines are worth fighting for and which ones are not? To help with these matters, we have adopted what Al Mohler once dubbed a “Theological Triage.”

Theological Triage

The word “triage” comes from a French word which means “to sort.” And if you’ve ever been to an emergency room, you’re familiar with the sorting process that takes place. If someone shows up with the sniffles, they’re most likely put at the back of the line. If someone shows up holding their decapitated leg, they’re put up front.

Doing theological triage follows a similar principle. As Christians, we must think through doctrine and decide which doctrines get sorted to the front (first-order issues) and which ones get pushed to the back (third-order issues).

At every membership class, I explain this concept and teach newcomers which doctrines are essential and which ones we can agree to disagree on. Let’s consider the three categories in turn.

First-Order Doctrines

First-order doctrines are the absolute essential doctrines to the Christian faith. These are doctrines that every true believer should affirm without hesitation. These doctrines include:

God is a Trinity
God is the creator of all things
Jesus Christ is the Son of God
Jesus is both God and man
Humans are made in God’s image
All humans are sinners and they must repent of their sin
Jesus died on a cross for our sins and rose again from the dead
People are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone
The Bible is God’s inspired word
Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead

You get the idea. These beliefs are so fundamental to the faith that if someone were to deny them, we would say that person belongs to a different faith system altogether.

Second-Order Doctrines

Second-order doctrines are not essential doctrines of the Christian faith, but they are essential for church membership. That is to say, even though people may disagree with us on these issues, we would not call into question their standing with God. We may think they’re wrong and think they should reconsider their views. But we would not question their faith altogether. That said, if people are going to be part of the same church, they need to agree on these second-order issues:

The recipients of baptism
Women Pastors
Revelatory gifts (speaking in tongues or prophecy)

Our statement of faith is clear on the first two points. We baptize believers and believe God has ordained for qualified men to serve as pastors. Our statement of faith doesn’t speak to revelatory gifts in the same way. So one could technically classify it as a third-order doctrine. But I suspect if someone felt strongly about publicly prophesying or speaking in tongues before the church, they would feel compelled to go to a different church where those types of practices were more accepted.

Third-Order Doctrines

Third-order doctrines are not essential to the Christian faith, nor are they essential for church membership. That is to say, church members are free to disagree on these matters. This does not mean, however, that these doctrines are unimportant (we can think of less important beliefs). It does not mean that we should not study the Scriptures to try and make sense of them as best as we can. What it does mean is that we are not going to divide over these issues.

Now sadly, it’s these third-order issues that have led to more church splits than anything else. But at Grace Bible Church, we are committed to remaining unified around the main things while allowing charitable disagreement around the not-so-main things. These third-tier doctrines include:

Calvinism vs. Arminianism
Age of the Earth
Millennial or tribulation views

Our statement of faith does not take a hard stand on any of these issues. Therefore, one does not need to affirm Calvinism or Arminianism in order to be a member in good standing at Grace Bible Church. In fact, our church leadership has disagreements on these matters! The same goes for one’s understanding of the age of the earth and the millennium. Good faithful Christians throughout history have disagreed on these matters which leads us to believe the issues aren’t as clear as the first and second-order doctrines.

What we encourage, then, is for each member to act charitably towards others with whom they disagree. We should never ridicule someone or call their faith into question because they land in a different place on one of these third-tier issues. We can agree to disagree or even study the topic together with the hopes of learning from one another. Let’s remember, though we’re all trying to get it right, none of us are infallible.

Dividing Over Doctrine

Placing doctrines in their proper tiers allows the church “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). It protects the church from contending too much or too little.

Liberals have historically contended for too little. They have tended to press first-tier doctrines down to the third tier. They’ve adopted an “agree to disagree” mentality when it comes to important matters such as Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead! On the flip side, fundamentalists have historically contended for too much. They have pushed third-tier issues up to the first tier and have divided over less-than-critical matters.

Doing theological triage protects us from both of these errors.

Joshua’s Conquest and God’s Moral Consistency

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By (Josh Klein)

If God is so good, why did he command the Israelites to utterly destroy everyone and everything in the Old Testament?

Is God a moral monster?[i] Particularly in the conquest of the land of Canaan? God calls for the complete and utter destruction of men, women, and children (as well as animals) multiple times[ii]. How could a moral God do this? Is that not genocidal malevolence? Would we not condemn a national leader today if they said “God told me to do murder thousands of children and women in His name” as a lunatic and a monster?

I believe these are important questions.

The question is a thoughtful one. When asked honestly, it takes seriously the biblical claims of God’s goodness, righteousness, love, and grace. The question, better asked, is like this: If God is who the rest of scripture says he is then how could he act in such a manner here? If God’s morality is inconsistent, then he really is not a god at all is he?

How we answer this question says a lot about who we believe God to be and what we believe scripture to be.

When I was in seminary, I took a class on Old Testament theology. I enjoyed the class because it came from a different perspective than I was used to. The professor in the class insisted that much of the narrative was mythological and/or allegorical in a way that was intended to set up Judaism’s religious structure and, ultimately, their need for a Messiah. He went so far as to say that Israel was likely a people that “emerged” from within the land of Canaan only to create a mythological origin story at a later date. In other words, the inerrancy of scripture is dubious at best.

One of the main issues brought to bear during the class was the violence in the Old Testament scriptures, particularly in the Israelite conquest of Canaan. I remember responding to the question with this statement: “If God is the author of life and death can’t God remove life at his will, and it be just? Especially considering man’s sin nature?”

This response alone fails to take the question seriously. The question is not about God’s power or his creative authority. It is about God’s consistency and biblical inherency. Why would God, out of one side of his mouth, condemn the Canaanite people to death, and then out of the other side of his mouth say things like “pray for those who persecute you?”

If God is not consistent then he is not moral. If God is not moral then he is not good, and if God is not good then he is not God.

Another unhelpful response is to use Romans 9[iii] as a justification in and of itself to proclaim that God creates some people to be killed for something they had no choice in doing. This sort of Exhaustive Divine Determinism[iv] unwittingly plays into the question’s premise. If God is creating people merely to smite them with his chosen people, then God seems to be a sadist. And while we can argue for God’s divine authority to do so until we are blue in the face, it does not, in fact, address the argument. Nor does it bring the skeptic closer to understanding God.

There are many responses to this question that are biblically and philosophically sound, and I cannot articulate all of them at length in this space. However, I believe we can provide a short answer that both takes the question seriously and remains faithful the biblical text without having to become an expert on ancient middle eastern civilizations.

For more on this objection check these out: Tim Stratton,[v] John Piper,[vi] William Lane Craig[vii]

To be clear, this is not an argument for the existence of God. The argument only follows once God’s existence has been established. This is also not an answer to the Euthyphro[viii] or Epicurean[ix] dilemmas. Perhaps I will tackle those another time, but I find them pedantic and shallow and easily refuted.

This is an argument for the consistency of the Judeo-Christian God, and a defense of his ethical consistency relying on the very thing he used to reveal himself: scripture.

To understand why God is a good God even (and perhaps especially!) within the context of the conquest of Canaan we need to go back to the very beginning to understand God’s relationship with creation in a post-fall world. I do not endeavor to provide a comprehensive breakdown in the limited space available here. Suffice it to say that entire books have been, and still could be, written on the topic and each line of thinking through the scriptures that I will provide could be expounded on ten-fold.

The foundation of God’s morality in this issue stems from a theology of sin that is introduced in the early part of Genesis. We find the penalty for sin, in general, is death[x]. However, we also find that the judge of the matter is God[xi] not man. The first human death recorded in scripture does not come from the hands of God, but from the hands of one brother to another. Cain feels slighted by Abel because his offerings to God are taken seriously while Cain’s are not. Cain’s response is to murder his brother in a fit of jealous rage. What Cain thought was justice we find to be injustice, and thus, punishable. The ethical keys to using death as discipline are only ever in the hands of God. Unless God proclaims death as consequence, death ought not be a consequence. We see this as well in God’s handling of Cain after the fact. It is God’s choice to allow Cain to live, despite the murder of his brother, and to give him a mark to indicate that this judgement is final and cannot be undone by human hands. Divine justice, from the hands of God is wielded for specific reasons upon specific people and we find this to be true throughout the scriptures.

Fast forward to the story of Noah[xii] and we find that God’s declaration of death upon all creation is due to the fall in the beginning of Genesis. While many will focus on the unfathomable act of judgement that occurs with a global flood in Genesis 6-11, one aspect that is often overlooked is God’s patience in the matter. A common theme throughout scripture is God’s patience with evil over time but swift rendering of justice when it reaches its fullness. God waits until “every intent of the thoughts of their (humanity’s) hearts was only evil continually” before he enacts divine justice through death with the global flood.

In the first 11 chapters of the Bible, we are reminded that God is just, loving, gracious, and merciful with his creation and God’s character in that regard does not shift in the time of the conquest of Canaan. Nor has it shifted since. Someday, the Lord will return with the keys to the second death, the real penalty for sin[xiii], and his judgement will be swift, righteous, and eternal!

But what make’s God’s judgement of humankind just? Using scripture as the barometer we find that humanity is corrupt from birth. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are constituted sinners.[xiv] Thus, all of humanity is deserving of death from the moment we are born. Living any part of life is a gift. God then, can take human life at his will because it is perfect and just for him to do so. The beginning of Genesis teaches us this. Every person that dies is experiencing judgement from the first sin, and every person that lives experiences grace.

But what about when God uses other humans as his tool for judgement? Up until now we have seen only instances of God’s divine intervention. However, soon, in biblical history, we are introduced to God’s use of human vessels to enact his judgement on the sins of humanity.

God’s judgement is just when it comes to taking human life, and God can and will take human life by utilizing human actors. Innocence cannot be claimed to the divine by a fallen being. The taking of “innocent” human life then, must be ordained by God as judgement for a wicked and theocratic people.

As Cardinal Manning once remarked, “all human conflict is ultimately theological.” So it is with biblical history between nations. Starting with the nation of Egypt at the end of Genesis and into the opening chapters of Exodus, we find that nearly every nation God’s chosen people interact with is a theocratic nation. Thus, God’s judgement on those nations reflects their devotion to a god that does not exist. They must be punished as a group, not merely as individuals lest they lead the nation of Israel astray into a different theocracy. We find this to be true with the flood[xv], Sodom and Gomorrah[xvi] the plagues of Egypt[xvii], and so it is with the conquest of Canaan. God waits until sin has reached its apex to blot it out and he erases demonic deities in the process.

We find this convergence between God’s divine patience and his need to exact justice on nations that worship non-deities in Genesis 15:16 when God says, “…the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

God’s patience is such that he will note strike against an entire nation of people unless their wickedness has been made complete. At this point in time, he will hand them over to their sin and punish them accordingly[xviii]. At the time that Israel is poised to enter the promised land we find that the wickedness of the Canaanite peoples in the land were at a fever pitch.

But God’s grace still abounds, prior to Israel’s arrival God promises to drive people from the land himself, “little by little” to make the conquest of Canaan easier for the Israelites but also because of his righteous judgement.[xix]

What constitutes completed wickedness? Why was God’s patience running out upon the entrance into the land of Canaan? Believe it or not, God’s law, specifically in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy gives us an answer.

God is very clear in Deuteronomy 9 that he is using Israel as a vessel for judgement. That the land is not a reward for Israel, but the conquest is a punishment for the wicked nations inhabiting the land.

We find that the nations in Canaan were engaged in all sorts of abhorrent, deviant, and evil behaviors. Incest, rape, child sacrifice, temple prostitution, homosexuality, bestiality, witchcraft, and profane violence to name only a few[xx]. After listing all of these behaviors as unlawful and worthy of the death penalty in Leviticus 18 God goes on to say this about the nations inhabiting Canaan at that time, “Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am casting out before you have become defiled,” and again in Leviticus 20:23, “Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I will drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them.”

There are many extra-biblical accounts of the evil practices of the Canaanite theocratic city-states as well. Particularly found in the Archaeological record (Archaeology and the Old Testament)[xxi] (Moloch and Canaanite Worship).[xxii]

The judgement that God foretold in Genesis 15 came to fruition through the Israelites in the conquest of Canaan. God’s judgement on a theocratic people was swift and severe lest the “gods” of the Canaanites be said to have “saved” select people to maintain the faith. And we know that this happens because the Israelites ultimately fail to live up to the billing and allow Canaanite religions not only to remain, but to thrive in their midst. Likewise, the violent judgement of Israel foretold by Yahweh in Deuteronomy[xxiii] came true with the conquest of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians.

We find that Joshua did all that he was told at the beginning of the book, but the Israelites failed to carry that mantle after his death. There is a common misconception by some that this means either Joshua used hyperbole to indicate he accomplished his task or that God was using hyperbole when he commanded Joshua to utterly destroy certain Canaanite cities. I believe neither viewpoint to be accurate.

It is clear from the beginning of the book of Joshua that he and the Israelites took very seriously God’s command. Otherwise Achan would not have been destroyed along with his family for violating the commandment after the Israelite defeat at Ai.[xxiv]

A careful reading of God’s rules for engagement in Deuteronomy 7 indicates that God anticipates survivors and even makes it clear to the Israelites that these survivors must not be allowed to prosper.[xxv] Elsewhere, in Deuteronomy 20, we find that there are other options for cities not placed under the “ban”. Israel was to first offer terms of peace, and if peace was rejected then they were to only destroy the men.[xxvi] Thus, the conquest of Canaan was primarily a judgement upon the kings of Canaan for their wicked and perverse structures.

God’s character remains the same in each of these events, and will remain the same in the consummation of time when God deals once and for all with sin and death. What does this mean? It means that the conquest of Canaan is no different than the flood story or the judgement of the world at the end of time. God’s divine ethic remains unwavering, and while it can seem unsettling for us to engage, we must understand the curse of Genesis 3 is what leads to the conquest in Joshua and the seat of judgement in Revelation.

Finally, while the divine ethic does not change, how that ethic is accomplished on earth does shift as God’s sovereign story continues to unfold. Just as God promised to never judge the world by a flood in Genesis[xxvii], he likewise shifts the focus of judgement from temporal to eternal through the establishment of his church through Jesus Christ. Could God still use nations to rain judgment down on each other? Absolutely, the heart of every human conflict is theological and current wars are no different. However, the time that God articulates a judgement on a people through the conquest of another people has long since passed. Not because it was wrong for God to do so, but because his choice in displaying his justice to the world now simply looks different.

God has released his final Word in the world and judgement rests on what the world does with Him[xxviii]. Thus, the idea that a current nation could legitimately use the idea that God is using them as a tool for judgement is refuted in scripture itself. But that’s another topic for another time.

In the end, the divine ethic survives severe scrutiny when placed within the framework of the biblical text. The Canaanite cultures were among the most abusive and evil cultures to have ever been established on the earth and God’s judgement of them was certainly just. The conquest is certainly unpalatable to our western minds, and for good reason. What matters most in this instance is not whether or not it makes us feel uneasy but whether or not this action is consistent with the character of God throughout history and scripture. I believe, that even in this short treatment we have found this to be right and true.

Footnotes:

[i] https://www.christianbook.com/moral-monster-making-sense-old-testament/paul-copan/9780801072758/pd/072758?event=ERRCER1

[ii] Deuteronomy 2:34, 3:6, 20:17; Joshua 6:21, 8:26, 10:28

[iii] Romans 9

[iv] https://freethinkingministries.com/3-reasons-why-exhaustive-divine-determinism-edd-is-not-redundant/

[v] https://freethinkingministries.com/ten-problems-with-the-canaanite-objection/?fbclid=IwAR1exRdFZkfyooD9VdxxgClonAsPVnkcNZzBuBv2tY_TNZ1XFN37tlxD2MI

[vi] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-conquest-of-canaan

[vii] https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/slaughter-of-the-canaanites

[viii] https://www.rationalrealm.com/philosophy/ethics/morality-objective-without-god-page5.html

[ix] https://epicurus.today/the-epicurean-paradox/

[x] Genesis 3, Romans 3:23

[xvii] Each plague refutes an Egyptian god including the taking of Pharoah’s son – Exodus 9

[xviii] Romans 1:23-30

[xix] Exodus 23:30; Deuteronomy 7:21-23

[xx] Leviticus 18-20

[xxi] https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Old-Testament-Merrill-Unger/dp/0310333911

[xxii] https://allthatsinteresting.com/moloch

[xxiii] Deuteronomy 28-30

[xxiv] Joshua 7-8

[xxv] Deuteronomy 7:2-6

[xxvi] Deuteronomy 20:10-15

[xxvii] Genesis 9:11

[xxviii] Hebrews 1

Christmas: The Cure For Our Two-Storied World

CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Bob Perry

Even people who don’t celebrate Christmas seem to know what it’s about — the birth of a Savior who comes to rescue us from the consequences of our rebellion against Him. Ultimately, that means it’s part of God’s rescue plan and where we go when we die. But there’s another aspect to Christmas that I think is important too. It’s also about showing us how to live. And right-living depends on how we think. Unfortunately, our thinking is infused with lies that we’ve accepted as being part of “the human condition.” And believing those lies results in dissension, oppression, racism, political wrangling, class struggle, economic strife, and war. Sadly, it’s all part of the gravest story ever told. Christmas offers an antidote to the effects of that story too.

The story started in The Garden. And we’ve been repeating it to each other ever since. It thrives on divided minds. But we are designed to be united. God and man. Husband and wife. Body and soul. Physical and spiritual. The division we experience is a symptom of wrong thinking about the nature of reality. But there is a way to fix it. Christmas shows us how. It’s the cure for our two-storied world.

Focus On The Physical World

There is an assumption in our contemporary society that all of us have tacitly accepted, even if we claim to be “religious.” It is an assumption born in the Enlightenment and nurtured through four-hundred years of modern philosophy, medical breakthroughs, and technological innovation. The assumption is this: That the physical world is all that really exists. And, since science is the study of the physical world, the logical assumption is that it will give the answers to our most profound questions. This is called Naturalism or Materialism. And many of us claim not to accept this view. We may even argue vehemently against it. But it is a difficult assumption to overcome because it is embedded in the fabric of our culture.

When we hear of an inexplicable healing, or an answered prayer, or an eerie “coincidence,” or a Christmas Star, our initial reaction is to seek a scientific explanation. Even those of us who take our faith seriously secretly wonder if the walls of Jericho really just fell down; if the Red Sea really parted, or (though we would be loathe to admit it) if Jesus really rose from the dead. We are hard-wired to be skeptical of those kinds of claims. In a thousand different ways we have assimilated, accommodated, and capitulated to the materialistic world. And with each baby step in that direction, the idea of the miraculous diminishes into a faintly held belief we have little hope of defending.

Non-Physical Reality

The Apostle Paul told us to “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). So, we take him up on it. But in our knee-jerk reaction to do so we sometimes forget that a Christian view of the world is not limited to physical things. In fact, science is impotent when it comes to answering our biggest questions. And that’s because Ultimate Reality is not physical. It’s transcendent. It’s spiritual.

The Christian worldview encompasses both the physical and the non-physical. Alone, neither is adequate to describe us as persons. And neither can explain the makeup of all we know and experience. Ideas. Values. Reason. Mind. Morals. Love. None of these things are physical. But all of them are real. Life would be meaningless without them.

Creating The Two-Storied World

The modern, materialistic culture we live in disdains such a view. It does its best to belittle and destroy it. The result is that we are constantly engaged in the battle of ideas that this kind of philosophy has created. Francis Schaeffer addressed this conflict many decades ago. He didn’t originate the idea. But he identified its roots in a kind of “split” thinking. And he popularized the notion in a phrase we all recognize when we talk about taking a “leap of faith.”

On Schaeffer’s view, we have created a two-storied vision of reality. And we all live in it. Think of it as a two-story house. Non-physical realities like values, spirituality, religion, faith and the like, reside upstairs. Downstairs we find things like the physical world and science.

UPPER STORY: Values – Spiritual – Religion – Faith — Private

LOWER STORY: Facts – Physical – Science – Knowledge — Public

Living In The Two-Story World

When you think this way, the lower story is where we are told to go when we want to know the true things. Only science can help us. It is public and verifiable. The culture tells us this is where we should be living our lives. It’s the force behind the exhortation we hear every day to “trust the science.”

Conversely, upper story ideas are private and subjective. We are free to take an irrational “leap of faith” to the upper story if we want to. But we must realize that to do so is to ignore rational thought. That kind of stuff has no business seeping into the “real world.” We take the leap upstairs on faith alone. And while no one is permitted to question the thoughts or ideas of your “private world,” neither are we free to allow those ideas to influence how we understand the lower story.

The Consequences Of A Two-Storied View

Unfortunately, most of us go along with this program unwittingly. We tacitly accept the idea that our personal faith and religion are disconnected from, and have little value in, a fact-based world. But this doesn’t fit with what we know and experience. There is no way to understand meaning and purpose.

The lower story is right in front of us. But it contains no hope. Nothing in it can save us. And our world is filled with people who are wallowing in this disconnected reality. They live in the lower-story, but they long for the upper.

Wrong Solutions

Some religions just accept the disconnect. The secularists deny the upper-story. They try to construct a replica of it downstairs using only lower-story stuff. Conversely, the New Age, Gnostic, and eastern religions try to deny or escape the lower-story. They’re happy to float around upstairs with no attachment to the ground.

Both of these are dismal failures because they can’t make sense of the whole show. They don’t even try. All they can offer is a truncated view of the reality.

Christianity is a house where the two stories meld into one. A place where it all makes sense. Facts and values. Spiritual and physical. Religion and science. Faith and knowledge. All of these make up an integrated view of reality.

The two-storied world is not meant to be divided. It never was. There are stairs right in the middle of the house. But they’re too tall for us to climb.

So, God comes down.

Christmas

This is the other Christmas message. The Author steps onto the stage to offer His ultimate revelation. He shows us that human-centered thinking is inadequate to address the human condition we created shortly after we arrived on the scene. We came up with the flawed philosophy that exacerbated those problems. We’re the ones who manufactured a “two-story” view of the world. Our humanistic thinking divided that which was meant to be indivisible.

Christmas reminds us that it all can be fixed in only one way. God gives us the ultimate example of how the world was meant to be through the Incarnation. That’s what it means. God’s essence quite literally “puts on meat.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

The spiritual is united with the physical right in front of our eyes.

At Christmastime, the floor joists shatter and a thundering shock wave pierces the night. The ceiling above our human-centered world collapses. And the spirit Who has been rattling around in the attic comes crashing into our living room.

The divine unites with the human in one person. A person who offers us the perfect example of what it means to bear His image. What it means to function as an integrated whole. That person offers us a way out of our self-made morass of idiotic ideas and worldly wisdom. The infinitely perfect man comes downstairs to rescue us. But He also shows us how to live.

Only He can do such a thing. And when He does, the world makes sense again.

The Miracle of Christmas

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

Later this week, Christians throughout the world will celebrate the birth of the Savior. But to the growing number of atheists, this celebration makes little sense. Having accepted the materialist’s view of reality, they have limited themselves to thinking that nature is all there is, or was, or ever will be. Largely oblivious to the futility of such a barren worldview, they think they have the corner on reason as they insist that miracles like the Incarnation are simply not possible.

But the thinking underlying this worldview is circular: they begin with the assumption – the working hypothesis – that nature is all there is, and that all things and events must be explained by natural processes. Is it any wonder, then, that they end up where they began, with the conclusion that miracles do not occur? And without the possibility of miracles, they conclude Christianity must be false, without ever bothering to examine the historical evidence that supports it. But, of course, for a Creator powerful enough to create the universe from nothing -as the Big Bang corroborates occurred – and intelligent enough to create practically infinite varieties of life through the assembly of amino acids into DNA, entering this world as a flesh and blood creature isn’t really an obstacle. Insisting that this is impossible is roughly similar to a fish in an aquarium insisting that nothing exists beyond the tank. To the fish, the tank may seem to define the limits of reality, but that is simply because its frame of reference is so limited.

This Christmas season, it’s worth remembering that the real miracle of Christmas is not that God became man, but the manner in which He did it. When Jesus came into this world, Augustus Caesar ruled a Roman Empire that was making its might felt in all directions of the compass. But Jesus wasn’t born into wealth, power or privilege. Swaddled in rags, He drew his first breath in the lowliest of circumstances, welcomed by parents who could barely care for Him and who needed to flee the country in order to protect Him. He was born to a people that were themselves powerless. Defying expectations of a conquering messiah, He walked among men and women as a simple carpenter, seeking neither to form a church nor raise an army. Instead, He spoke of God’s great love for us, our need to repent and the consequence of remaining in our rebellion. The new “Adam,” he lay down his life to restore what was lost through the original Adam, to fix what was broken…to re-balance the scales of justice through an unmerited act of mercy.

In so doing, he showed us the meaning of real love – love that seeks neither reward nor return, love that is given selflessly and without limit – the kind of love we each long for but seek in the wrong places. He emptied himself so that he could fill us with the love that could restore the relationship broken when man chose to use his free will to defy God. Possessing infinite power, he chose to serve, rather than be served. Without ever putting quill to parchment, his teachings nonetheless reverberate down to us 2000 years later, with the same transformative power that rocked the Roman Empire, and then the world.

The Psalmist says:
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?”

What is man?

To the atheist, nothing more than an animal. An intelligent animal, to be sure, but nothing more.

But to the Creator of the universe, man holds a much-revered place. That he would bother with us, that he would express such love to us and for us, that, indeed, is the true Miracle of Christmas.

Perpetua

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Michelle Johnson

Perpetua was born in Carthage (modern day Tunisia) near the end of the second century. Her family of origin was well off and when we first meet her, she is a young wife and mother. The church in Carthage had grown in the century and a half since the resurrection of Jesus. Perpetua had responded to the truth of the Gospel and became a follower of Jesus. When we encounter her in the pages of history, she is a catechumen. This means she was being taught the core tenants of Christianity in preparation for the public declaration of her faith through baptism.

What we know about Perpetua’s early life is limited to these few facts. Were it not for the existence of her own personal diary, we may not have ever heard of Perpetua—the brief details of her life or the story of her death. There are a few things that make this document unique and important. First is the fact that Perpetua is a woman. It is one of the earliest—if not the earliest, preserved writings by a woman in church history. She personally wrote the part documenting her imprisonment, death sentence, and two visions she had while in prison. Another person picked up the project and described the remaining part of the story.[i] While the second author is unidentified, some speculate it was Tertullian—early Christian apologist and author.[ii]

Perpetua – the Visionary

Her written story is also important as it gives us insight into the “popular piety” or contemporary Christian thought and practice of the late second and early third century in North Africa.[iii] We can garner information about the theology of martyrdom that was prevalent at the time. The theology of martyrdom had certain characteristics that Ferguson points out from Perpetua’s visions. At this time, the church believed to be called to be a martyr meant to share in the suffering Jesus experienced and therefore it was a gift to be embraced.

The martyr was seen as a witness. As we see in Perpetua’s diary, there is an audience present when she and others are brought before the authorities to face judgment and sentencing. The conversation occurs between the judge and the one charged but the testimony is overheard by those present. Any declarations of the truth of the gospel during this testimony is seen as an opportunity to spread the news of Christ. The account of her vision also provides insight into the eschatology of the time. It was believed those who died as a martyr immediately entered heaven.[iv]

Perpetua – the Prisoner

It is Perpetua’s own writing that gives us what little information we have about her life before her arrest.[v] She begins her story while in prison. We learn she was arrested along with a handful of other catechumens but was able to be baptized while imprisoned. She describes having her infant son with her and God’s grace upon them both when they were ultimately separated. The reader is introduced to Perpetua’s father. He makes a handful of visits to the prison attempting to persuade his daughter to do what was necessary to save her life. Her father was not a Christian and suggests there is no danger offering a sacrifice to the emperor in exchange for her freedom. Perpetua expresses sorrow over her father’s suffering but is resilient in her commitment to follow Jesus and worship Him along as God.

Perpetua records two visions or dreams. The significance of these for us today was discussed above. The first one occurs before Perpetua and the others are sentenced. She seems to understand from this, she will indeed die because she won’t compromise her commitment to the one true God. The second vision comes the night before she is to face the beasts in the arena. This vision convinces Perpetua she is fighting the devil himself, not animals of the earth.[vi]

Perpetua – the Martyr

Perpetua documents this second vision and is resigned to the fact that she will not write the account of the fight within the arena. She doesn’t assign someone to pick up the task but seems to leave it to whoever might. As mentioned before, some speculate it was Tertullian in part and this is so because there are literary qualities that match two of his other works.[vii] Regardless of who it was, they faithfully continued to tell Perpetua’s story. She and her fellow prisoners were led to the arena to face the animals. While she suffered injury, she was not killed by the beasts but ultimately died by the sword of the gladiator.

Conclusion

Perpetua’s story has had enduring influence throughout church history. Her diary was read in local churches for centuries following her death. St. Augustine, famous church father from a couple centuries later utilized Perpetua’s story in no less than four of his sermons. Her story has value for us today. The academic value–learning about Christian thought and beliefs of second century believers was discussed above. It also allows us to hear the personal testimony from a believer in the earliest centuries of the church.

While not all of us will be called to die for our faith, the temptation to bow to another god is something common to each one of us. It may not be the emperor to which we must consider sacrificing but it might be self, money, career, relationship or more. The one true God is quite clear: we “shall have no other god beside Him.” (Exodus 20:3 CSB)

Footnotes

[i] “The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas”, https://www.ssfp.org/pdf/The_Martyrdom_of_Saints_Perpetua_and_Felicitas.pdf . (accessed September 22, 2022). This link provides access to an English version of Perpetua’s diary.

[ii] Johannes Quasten, Patrology: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature, Patrology 1 (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1992), 181.

[iii] Both Ferguson and Quasten address this point. Everett Ferguson, Church History – From Christ to the Pre-Reformation, Second edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 81-83. Quasten, Patrology, 182.

[iv] Ferguson, Church History, 82-83.

[v] https://www.ssfp.org/pdf/The_Martyrdom_of_Saints_Perpetua_and_Felicitas.pdf

[vi] Ferguson, Church History, 82-83.

[vii] Quasten, Patrology,181.

In short, no.

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Perpetua – the Visionary

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Conclusion

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