Tag Archive for: Christianity

Grappling with Divine Hiddenness: Why Does God Not Make His Existence More Obvious?

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

One of the most challenging objections to the existence of God is the problem of divine hiddenness. Closely related to the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness asks “Where is God?”; “Why doesn’t God make His existence more obvious?”; “Why does God leave any room for doubt?” Surely God, if He existed, would not need apologists to make the case for His existence — couldn’t He have made it more immediately apparent? Related to these concerns is the problem of unanswered prayer. Why do so many peoples’ prayers go unanswered, often despite years of persistent prayer? The problem is even connected to the problem of evil, since one may ask why God apparently fails to show up to put an end to evil and unjust suffering in our world. These are indeed difficult questions that deserve to be taken seriously and thoughtfully considered.

The Biblical authors also recognized and grappled with divine hiddenness. For example, the Psalmist asked “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Ps 10:1). Another Psalm likewise says “Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground. Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (Ps 44:23-26). One could continue in a similar vein for some time. The problem of divine hiddenness is, in my judgment, one of the best arguments against the existence of God. It has its most articulate and erudite defense, to my knowledge, in the work of Canadian philosopher John L. Schellenberg (see his book The Hiddenness Argument — Philosophy’s New Challenge to Belief in God).[1]

The problem is particularly difficult on an emotional level. Schellenberg draws the analogy of a friend describing his parents: “Wow, are they ever great — I wish everyone could have parents like mine, who are so wonderfully loving! Granted, they don’t want anything to do with me. They’ve never been around. Sometimes I find myself looking for them — once, I have to admit, I even called out for them when I was sick — but to no avail. Apparently they aren’t open to being in a relationship with me — at least not yet. But it’s so good that they love me as much and as beautifully as they do!”[2] This analogy should give a sense of the impact of this argument, rhetorically and emotionally.

While it may be admitted that the argument from divine hiddenness is one of the most perplexing issues for the theist to come to terms with, especially emotionally, the real question that needs to be addressed is that of whether it offers sufficient ground to overhaul the powerful cumulative positive reasons to believe that God exists and that He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. I will argue in this article that the answer is ‘no’.

A Lack of Obviousness Does Not Mean Poor Evidential Support

Why does God not make His existence more obvious? The first point I will make in response to this question is that God’s existence not being obvious does not entail that it is not well evidentially supported. We know from physics, for example, that a physical object like a table or a chair is comprised of mostly empty space. This is not at all obvious (in fact it would seem to be almost obvious that it is not the case) and yet we have good evidential support that it is so. One may reply that whereas we know scientifically that the chair is mostly comprised of empty space, we nonetheless still live our lives as if though it is not — our day-to-day choices and beliefs are not based on how we scientifically understand things to be, but how we experience them in our daily lives. However, I can think of counter-examples where we do act against what we feel in accord with the available evidence, even when we are putting our lives on the line. For example, despite being a frequent flyer, I get anxious about being on an airplane. Even though I know rationally that flying is the safest way to travel (statistically, your odds of being involved in a fatal plane crash are less than 1 in 12 million), flying – especially in turbulent conditions – just doesn’t feel like it is safe to me. Nevertheless, I frequently overcome my fear of flying by stepping onto an airplane, often for very long distances. In that case, I am literally committing my life to what my rational faculties tell me, and disregarding what my emotions and feelings tell me, because I know that generally my rational faculties are a more reliable gauge of what is actually true than my feelings.

Someone recently asked me why God cannot be more like the force of gravity, which we experience directly. However, while we do have direct experience of the effects of gravity, it is not immediately obvious what causes things to gravitate towards the ground. The law of gravity was not articulated before Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Indeed, in attempting to explain why unsupported bodies fall to the ground, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle put forward the idea that objects simply moved towards their ‘natural place’, the center of the earth (which in Aristotle’s cosmology was the center of the Universe), and that objects fall at a speed proportional to their weight. So perhaps gravity is less ‘obvious’ than one might think (though something which nonetheless enjoys strong evidential support). I would argue that the evidence of God is all around us, so we do in a sense experience God in a similar way to how we experience gravity. Just as we observe the effects that gravity has all around us but do not see the gravitational force that actually causes those effects, we also see the many things that God has made all around us, even though we do not see the being who actually caused those things to exist.

One may still object here that it should not take us a lot of work to discover that Christianity is true. Rather, the truth of the gospel, granting what is at stake, should be readily apparent. I shall return to this objection in due course. However, I will note here that I do not think God requires more than it is reasonable for a serious enquirer to give to an issue of this much importance. Some enquirers are better placed than others, and God looks for us to exert ourselves according to the light we have been given. I have heard, for instance, many stories of Jesus revealing Himself to people in dreams and visions in Muslim-majority countries, presumably since those are parts of the world where it is harder for people to otherwise hear the gospel. In the west, we have ample access to the gospel and to the tools needed to do our due diligence in investigating its claims.

I think we have to trust the goodness of God, since presumably God, in his omniscience, knows what every person would have done had they had more evidence — i.e. whether they would have chosen to enter into a relationship with God or to reject Him. We know from plenty of Biblical examples that not everyone who is presented with conclusive evidence for God (whether by miracles, predictive prophecies, or direct manifestations) submits to Him. If God knows that a given individual is not going to enter into a good, lasting relationship with Him, then why would God ensure the person believes? Furthermore, Scripture also indicates that people are judged in accordance with the amount of light they have rejected (e.g. Mt 11:21-22; Jn 12:47-48). Even many contemporary public atheists have essentially said that no amount of evidence could change their mind. For example, Richard Dawkins was asked in a conversation with Peter Boghossian what it would take for him to believe in God. Dawkins said that not even the second coming would be enough evidence. When Boghossian asked him whether any amount of evidence could change his mind. He replied, “Well, I’m starting to think nothing would, which, in a way, goes against the grain, because I’ve always paid lip service to the view that a scientist should change his mind when evidence is forthcoming.” It could, therefore, be seen as an act of mercy for God to withhold from them more evidence if they were going to reject it anyway and thereby bring upon themselves greater judgment. This adds yet further plausible motivation for God not to ensure that everyone had greater access to evidence for His existence, which would thereby render them more culpable. This point has been independently made by Travis Dumsday in a paper in the journal Religious Studies.[3]

This last point may be challenged by the skeptic by pointing to the existence of non-resistant non-believers. As Schellenberg puts it, “If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.”[4] However, I would contest that there is such a thing as long-term non-resistant nonbelief. My own view is that the evidence for Christianity is such that anyone who is fully informed and takes it upon himself to impartially examine it — with a heart open toward accepting God as Lord — will, in the long term, come to find Christianity to be true and well supported. In any case, human psychology, particularly at the subconscious level, is so complex that I doubt that it is demonstrable that any nonbeliever is completely nonresistant.

Couldn’t God Have Given Us Stronger Evidence?

A related objection is that it is possible for the evidence for Christianity to have been stronger than it in fact is. Surely, if God existed, He would have given us the strongest possible evidence. However, I do not think that we need expect something that goes beyond perfectly adequate evidence for the serious inquirer. Many atheists are under the mistaken impression that God wants people to believe in Him no matter what they are going to go on and do with that knowledge. It is never contended anywhere in Scripture that it is a commendable thing to believe in God yet reject a relationship with Him. In the Old Testament, the Jews had no doubt that God existed – they had seen many miracles performed before their eyes – and yet they went off time and again into idolatry. Even those who saw Jesus’ miracles before their very eyes didn’t believe in Him (e.g. John 12:37) and wanted to put Him to death – e.g. see the reaction of many after Jesus raised Lazarus (John 11:45-53). The eighteenth century lawyer and Christian thinker Joseph Butler (1692-1752), in his Analogy of Religion, put forward the idea that our time on earth is a period of probation.[5] For some people in particular the form that that probation may take is a form of testing whether they are willing to engage in the intellectual inquiry that is necessary to give themselves a fair examination of the evidence.

An objection I sometimes encounter is that, if God exists, then there should not be any reasonable arguments against His existence at all. However, this complaint, it seems to me, boils down essentially to the dubious claim that, if Christianity is true, there cannot be any puzzles that require mental effort to work out. Another point to bear in mind is that many people are not even presented with these as puzzles that seriously compromise the evidence that they already have. For some people, working through the problem of evil is part of their probation here in this life. And if they are diligent, they will work through it. Even if they cannot find adequate and satisfying answers to why there exists so much suffering in the world, they can learn to trust in the goodness of God, and find in the problem of evil insufficient ground to overturn the positive confirmatory case for Biblical theism. Either they will find adequate answers, or they will find enough positive evidence to make the fact of their inability to find those answers not, in the end, sufficient to undermine their faith.

Why Does God Require of Us So Much Work?

I often hear the objection that in order to really be compelled by the evidence for Christianity, one has to take a very deep dive into esoteric scholarship. Surely, if God were real, the truth of the gospel should be a lot more self-evident. Indeed, this is actually also an objection to my epistemology that I frequently encounter from some Christians as well – namely, that my hard line evidentialism implies that Christians cannot be rational in believing the gospel unless they become an academic and invest hundreds of hours in the study of the evidences for Christianity. Since not everyone has the aptitude and access to resources necessary to undertake such deep study, so the objection goes, this cannot be God’s normative way of imparting rational confidence to believers that the gospel they have entrusted is indeed true.

However, I want to be careful here to draw a distinction between what I call an explicit rational warrant and what can be called an implicit, or tacit, rational warrant for Christian faith. Every Christian, I would argue, can have at least an implicit rational warrant for believing that God exists and that He has revealed Himself in the Bible. Romans 1:20 teaches that God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” The Greek word translated “without excuse” in this verse is ἀναπολογήτους (literally, “without an apologetic”). Furthermore, the Psalmist wrote that “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork,” (Ps 19:1). I do not think the Scriptures are envisaging people having to do PhDs in astrophysics or molecular biology, or master probability theory, in order to see the hand of God revealed in nature. Every time we step outdoors and behold the things that God has made – especially living organisms – we intuit that things have been made for a purpose, even if we couldn’t explicitly express why that is the case. Indeed, throughout history, the vast majority of people who have lived have been theists.

This implicit or inarticulate sense of the case for theism explains, I think, why some people come to believe that there must be a God when they hold their newborn child in their arms for the first time – they see the incredible design and elegance that is inherent in the process of development from a fertilized egg to a new born infant. They recognize, even if only implicitly and intuitively, that this is a process that required a high level of foresight to bring about – since it involved a high-level objective – which points to the involvement of a conscious mind in the programming of developmental pathways.

Those with an implicit rational warrant for belief in God may not be able to hold their own in a debate with a learned atheist scholar. This is why we hear so many ill-formulated attempted arguments for God that are along the right lines but not sufficiently nuanced to pass for sound argumentation. But I would argue that they nonetheless have sufficient rational warrant for their belief that God exists. Over time, as a believer matures, I would argue that the rational warrant for belief that was in the first place implicit should become more and more explicit and articulate.

In fact, even a biologist as staunchly atheistic as Francis Crick (co-discoverer with James Watson of the double-helical structure of DNA) said that “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved,”[6] Richard Dawkins similarly said at the beginning of The Blind Watchmaker that “Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose,”[7] Dawkins then spends the remainder of the book trying to argue, in my opinion unsuccessfully, that this design is not real but only apparent.

People also have a moral compass and have an implicit sense that there are objective moral norms and duties in the world – something which makes much better sense if theism is true than if atheism were true. Besides general revelation (i.e. what may be known about God from the created Universe), this sense of objective moral norms and duties also provides people with an additional witness, even if only implicit, to the existence of God.

People can have a similarly implicit rational warrant for believing that God has revealed Himself in the Bible. This is not something that you need a PhD in Biblical Studies to discover. I think for many believers they read through the Bible and encounter the cumulative force of various prophetic passages like Isaiah 53, recognizing Jesus in them. They might not be able to express the argument explicitly enough to debate a learned Rabbi. But they nonetheless, I would argue, have an implicit rational warrant. Likewise, they might read through the New Testament accounts and perceive implicitly some of the hallmarks of verisimilitude, such as the criterion of embarrassment, or unexplained allusions, or undesigned coincidences. They might begin to recognize the evidential value of the testimonial evidence we have in the New Testament in regard to events such as the resurrection. Many of those categories of evidence are actually not at all hard to grasp and may be perceived through common sense.

This is what, I suspect, many Christians in fact are talking about when they say that they just know that Christianity is true. I think often-times Christians can confuse an implicit rational warrant for belief in Scripture (which is based on evidence) with some sort of mystical inner-witness that Christianity is true. For example, one may have an inarticulate sense of the power of the whole case for Christianity without realizing that it is, in fact, a rational response to a cumulative case argument.

So, where am I going with this? I would argue that discovering evidence for God is not actually that hard. Rather, it has been made artificially hard by bad scholarship and poor standards that insist that the simplest answer cannot actually be the correct answer. This is true in science as well as Biblical scholarship. A lot of the ink spilled on these issues, therefore, is ink spent answering really bad arguments that should never have gotten traction to begin with but, because they provided an excuse for unbelief, they have become widely accepted and highly esteemed, even among academics who should know better.

Where is God?

A common objection to God’s existence is that, if the God of Scripture exists, then He would be reasonably expected to still be working in the world today. The skeptic reasons, then, that the failure to observe God working in a tangible and detectable way in the world today should be taken as not merely evidence against Christianity but, more than that, as a defeater of any evidence that may be offered from ancient documents. I wonder though what sort of evidence the skeptic would accept as sufficient reason to think that God is still working in the world in a tangible way. Would it need to be a direct personal experience, or would he or she accept reliable testimony from others that they had the sort of direct personal encounter that he or she is seeking for?

Testimony, popular atheist protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, is a valid form of evidence. When any person makes a claim to have witnessed an event, there are three – and only three – categories of explanation for that claim. Those are (a) they deliberately set out to deceive; (b) they were honestly mistaken; and (c) their claim was actually correct. I think those broad categories of explanation are mutually exhaustive (though I can imagine some situations in which they might be at work in combination). As either one of the two former claims becomes less plausible as a result of the evidence one adduces, this leads to a necessary redistribution of the probabilities, leading to option (c) becoming more probable than it was previously. This, then, provides evidence confirming scenario (c). The greater the extent to which options (a) and (b), in any given case, are disconfirmed by the evidence, the greater support is enjoyed by option (c). This method can be applied to modern claims just as well as it can be applied to ancient ones. An individual’s track record of habitual trustworthiness and reliability can count as evidence against the hypothesis that they were deliberately setting out to deceive. The plausibility of the hypothesis that they are honestly mistaken will depend on the particulars of the case.

I am not talking here about testimonies of healing that are easy to explain by some kind of sensory illusion or sleight of hand, or that plausibly would have gotten better anyway. I am talking about cases that seem to defy naturalistic explanation. Dr. Craig Keener has compiled a two volume set on claims of such miraculous occurrences.[8] To take one example, he discusses a friend of his, Leo Bawa, the former director of research at Capro, a prominent Nigerian missions movement. One intriguing miracle (of several) that he told Dr. Keener about is that “among some tribes in Adamawa and Taraba State, I had instances where no interpreter was available and the Lord gave me understanding and ability to speak the people’s languages, a feat I never performed before or since after that incident.”[9] Keener notes that “Other accounts of this phenomenon exist, though many of these are secondhand”[10]. In a footnote, Dr. Keener elaborates[11],

“I have direct accounts in which others recognized the languages from Dr. Derek Morphew (Nov. 12, 2007); Pastor David Workman (Nov. 12, 2007); Pastor David Workman (April 30, 2008); Dr. Medine Moussounga Keener (Aug. 12, 2009, secondhand about Pastor Daniel Ndoundou); my student Leah Macinskas-Le (April 25, 2010, regarding her Jewish mother becoming a believer in Jesus because she understood the Hebrew prayer of an uneducated pastor’s prayer in tongues); Del Tarr, personal correspondence, Sept. 30, 2010 (noting three cases he has witnessed, including a recent one involving Korean; cf. also Oct. 5, 6, 2010).”

I have heard about this sort of phenomenon from others as well, and it does not seem to be the type of thing that could be explained naturalistically. I trust Dr. Keener and I presume that he trusts his sources since these are personal contacts of his (the fact that the phenomenon is multiply attested helps as well). So, it seems unlikely in these cases that Keener’s sources are all lying to him, and these also seem to be phenomena about which it would be quite hard to be honestly wrong.

Now, one might object at this point that in this case the testimony is coming from someone whom they do not know personally. With public figures such as Dr. Craig Keener, though, one can, to a certain degree, evaluate whether this is someone who is likely to make stuff up. This is true especially of high-profile scholars such as Dr. Keener since one can get a sense, through careful reading of their academic work, whether they are careful and reliable in their reportage of information. Dr. Michael Brown (another public figure and Biblical scholar) has also told me (on public record) about similar events to those described above, both that he was a witness to and testimonies of friends of his (including one individual, who was a cessationist and therefore not predisposed already to believe in miraculous events, who reported the incident to Dr. Brown in shock). The fact that this sort of occurrence is multiply attested by different credible sources leads me to think that something miraculous is indeed going on here. I chose this particular category of miracle claim as an illustrative example since this is one type of phenomenon that seems to defy naturalistic explanation and also seems to be something that it would be very difficult to be honestly wrong about having witnessed.

There are also accounts from sober-minded people whom I trust of radical experiences of the presence of God (e.g. see this one from Paul Washer).

My question, then, to the skeptic is, as I said above, is the only type of evidence that may be admitted for God acting in the world today a direct personal encounter, or would one be prepared to accept testimonial evidence from other people? If one is only prepared to accept a direct personal encounter but not testimonial evidence, I would argue that that is not a rational approach. On the other hand, if one is willing to accept testimonial evidence that such encounters do indeed exist, then I would ask what the qualitative difference is between the testimonial evidence that is available in the present day and that which is present in the 2000 year old documents we know as the New Testament. Presumably the same principles of evaluation would pertain to those.

What About Unanswered Prayer?

As for unanswered prayer, this is a recurring thing that comes up in my conversations with ex-Christians – that is, that answered prayers do not seem to be distinguishable from chance and the act of prayer often feels like talking to the wall or the ceiling. This feeling during prayer is something I can relate to myself experientially, so it is not simply a theoretical issue for me. If Christianity is true, however, this entails that prayer is legit. Our belief in prayer should not be predicated on our evaluation of our feelings while praying or on our later examination of the result of prayer. To do this is not to evaluate prayer in a manner consistent with what Scripture teaches us concerning prayer. Nowhere in Scripture are we promised that prayer will be accompanied by an internal sense of being heard. Rather, prayer is supposed to be accompanied by a conviction that our prayers are heard in Christ, since it is through Him that we have access to God.

We are also not in a position to determine whether something is providentially caused by God or not. The Biblical view is not to look around for obviously miraculous causes and give God credit for those only, while presuming non-miraculous events would have happened anyway. Rather, we should view God as sovereign and credit Him with providential control over all things. So greatly has a twenty-first century naturalistic bias permeated our thinking that we in fact often fail to give God sufficient credit for His daily providence.

Prayer, then, should not be evaluated on the basis of a mystical sensation of being heard, or our impression of miraculous divine action in response to prayer. To do so is to judge prayer by a criterion which we were never given by God. How, then, should we evaluate the validity of prayer? We should evaluate it by the validity of the work of Christ and our faith in Him. If we are trusting in Christ then we have true and valid prayer. There is more that can be said, of course, about limiting our appreciation of prayer to when God says “yes” to a request, but my point here is simply that evaluating prayer by these standards is a problem from the start. Our belief in prayer stems from our beliefs in Christ and the two should never be separated. If we believe in Christ because of the evidence for His resurrection, then we are being inconsistent to fail to believe in prayer.

Another thing I will say about prayer is that there is, I think, what I would call an epistemic asymmetry when it comes to prayer. An epistemic asymmetry is where making an observation might be strong confirmatory evidence for your hypothesis but not making that observation is only weak, or even negligible, evidence against it. To take an illustration, imagine I see a spider crawling along my desk as I sit here and type this article. That would be excellent evidence for the hypothesis that, somewhere in my apartment, there is a spider. But suppose I do not see a spider in front of me. That is only very weak, even negligible evidence, that there is no spider in my apartment (since there are many other places where a spider might be). That is an example of what I call epistemic asymmetry.

So, how does this relate to prayer? I would argue that specific answers to prayer are relatively strong confirmatory evidence but apparently unanswered prayer is only comparatively weak disconfirmatory evidence. The reason for this is that there could be many explanations for why your prayer went unanswered. Perhaps God, in his omniscience, said ‘no’ because He knows (better than you do) that what you asked for is not good for you. Or perhaps there is unconfessed sin in your life. Both the Old and New Testaments teach that sin can hinder our prayer life. For example, Proverbs 28:9 says, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.” 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” There could thus be any number of reasons why your prayer was not answered and it is not necessarily particularly improbable that, if Christianity is true, many of your prayers will not be answered in the way that you desired. We have plenty of Biblical examples of prayers going unanswered. David’s prayer for the life of his illegitimate child by Bathsheba was unanswered (or answered negatively, depending on how you prefer to classify it). The same is true of Jesus’ prayer that the cup might pass from him in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the latter example, Jesus’ prayer included the qualifier “If it is possible…” And the answer was, “No, that can’t happen.” It would probably be classified as the most spectacular unanswered prayer of all time by the atheists, except for what happens afterward with Jesus being raised from the dead.

The answered prayers, on the other hand, depending on their level of specificity, can in principle be relatively strong confirmatory evidence for Christianity. Even if you cannot point to specific examples in your own life, there are writings by other people that would potentially document such examples (presuming them to be accurately reported). For example, George Müller (1805-1898) was a Christian evangelist and the director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. There was a time when the orphanage at Bristol had run out of bread and milk.[12] Müller was on his knees praying for food when a baker knocked on the door to say that he had been unable to sleep that night, and somehow knew that Müller would need bread that morning. Shortly after, a truck carrying milk broke down, directly in front of the orphanage door. There was no refrigeration. The driver begged Müller to take the milk, which would go bad if it were not consumed. It was just enough for the 300 children in the orphanage.

Conclusion

To conclude, while the problem of divine hiddenness is, on first inspection, a thorny issue, further analysis reveals it to be not as weighty a concern as it first appeared. Given the existence of plausible explanations of divine hiddenness (e.g. God’s knowledge, in His omniscience, of how different individuals will respond to the evidence of His existence), I would argue that the problem of divine hiddenness, though a complete answer eludes us, is not sufficient to overturn the extensive and varied positive confirmatory evidences of Christianity.

Footnotes

[1] John L. Schellenberg, The Hiddenness Argument (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

[2] Ibid., 41-42.

[3] Travis Dumsday, “Divine hiddenness as divine mercy”, Religious Studies 48, no. 2 (2012): 183-198.

[4] John L. Schellenberg, The Hiddenness Argument (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 53.

[5] Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion: Natural and Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1897).

[6] Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 138.

[7] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986), 4.

[8] Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, Volume 1 (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2011).

[9] Ibid., 328.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid., 1769.

[12] Roger Steer, George Müller: Delighted in God (Rosshire: Christian Focus, 1997), 131.

6 Reasons Why Peter Is The Source Of Mark’s Gospel

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

Many of the early church fathers say that Mark’s Gospel is based on Peter’s preaching. If that’s the case, it’s understandable why an apostle like Matthew or someone like Luke would use Mark as a source. You can’t get much closer to the life of Jesus than through the eyes of Peter.

We’ve looked at what the early church fathers had to say about Mark before. However, skeptics like Bart Ehrman say that this whole idea that Mark based his Gospel on Peter’s preaching stems from Papias, and Papias doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

OK, so now what?

While I don’t think that argument works, what if I said there was a way to bypass this objection? Are there any internal clues in Mark’s Gospel that point to Peter being the source?

In this video, I look at six internal evidences that demonstrate that Peter is Mark’s main source.

BIBLE STUDY: WAS THE RESURRECTION BODY OF JESUS SPIRITUAL OR PHYSICAL?

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics for Parents, Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Wintery Knight

So, everyone from left to right accepts the early creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 being dated to 1-3 years after the death of Jesus, even atheists like Crossley, Ludemann, and Crossan. The thing is, some people are not sure that the appearances of Jesus to individuals, groups, and skeptics really were physical appearances. They say, “well, Paul’s appearance was non-physical, so the other ones must have been, too.”

Let’s take a look.

Here’s a paragraph from my friend Eric Chabot, from his blog Think Apologetics. He explains why Paul’s use of the word “resurrection” to describe what the other witnesses saw means bodily resurrection.

He writes:

If Paul did have a vision, then the term “vision” is vague and must be defined. As Licona points out, visions are either objective (i.e., something that is seen without the use of our natural senses) or subjective (i.e., a product of our minds). The real problem is with the vision hypothesis is that it doesn’t explain Paul’s use of resurrection to explain what had happened to Jesus. The two words are used for resurrection in the New Testament “anastasis” (rising up) and “egersis” (waking up), both imply a physical body. Furthermore, the use of the word “opethe” (the Greek word for appeared) shows the Gospel writers did believe that Jesus appeared physically. “There you will see (opethe) him” (Matt. 28:7); “The Lord has risen and has appeared (opethe) to Simon” (Luke 24:24). When they used “opethe” here, it means that He appeared physically to them.

So when Paul gives his list of appearances in 1 Cor. 15, the issues become whether the appearance to him is the same as it was to the disciples. There is no doubt the post-resurrection body of Jesus (after the ascension) had to be somewhat different than the body the disciples saw. Also, whenever the New Testament mentions the word body, in the context of referring to an individual human being, the Greek word “soma” always refers to a literal, physical body. Greek specialist Robert Gundry says “the consistent and exclusive use of soma for the physical body in anthropological contexts resists dematerialization of the resurrection, whether by idealism or by existentialism.” [9] Furthermore, in N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God shows that the Greek word for the resurrection which is “anastasis” was used by ancient Jews, pagans, and Christians as bodily in nature.

Now, I think my view on this, and I’m not sure if Eric would correct me, is that Paul got an objective but the non-physical vision of Jesus. There was something there that everyone else could see and hear, in my view. But in my view, Paul’s “veridical” vision was post-ascension and so non-physical. Paul uses the word resurrection to describe what the other eyewitnesses saw (and he met them at least twice, according to Gal 1 and Gal 2), and that means physical resurrected body.

Eric Chabot writes this in another place:

Now, I said before in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul could have chosen to only use the word pneuma. He doesn’t. He does say “spiritual,” but he’s got an adjective there. He also says, soma, “body.” What did Paul mean?

Philippians Chapter 3. It’s a short chapter. There are 21 verses, but Paul says three things in one chapter that indicate he’s talking about a physical resurrection. In the opening verses he says, “I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews” and “as touching the law,” he says, “I was a Pharisee.” Now, it’s very well known that the Pharisee believed in a bodily resurrection. In fact, according to Acts 23, as Paul was being taken captive by the Romans to prevent his being killed, he shouted out to the group of people and said, “Why are you taking me? Because I believe in the resurrection of the dead?” He meant a literal resurrection.

When the Pharisees heard that, they said there’s nothing wrong with this guy. But the Sadducees [who didn’t believe in the Resurrection] didn’t like it. So as a Pharisee, he’s agreeing with the Pharisees.

So, the first evidence is from Philippians 3. As a Pharisee, Paul believes in a physical resurrection.

Secondly, in verse 11 he says, “That I may attain the resurrection of the dead.” Now, the normal Greek word for resurrection is anastasis, but in this passage, Philippians 3:11, he puts a prefix on there, ek anastasis. Ekanastasis, according to all Greek scholars that I know of, is translated in this passage: “The out resurrection from among the dead.” Paul said, “I want to attain the out resurrection.”

Now, to a Jew, “out resurrection” means “what goes down is what comes up.” You come out from death. And then just a few verses later, Philippians 3:20,21, he said, “From Heaven, we look for Jesus who will change our vile soma (body) to be like unto His glorious soma (or body),” when he should have said pneuma, according to this other view.

So he’s a Pharisee who believes in a physical resurrection. Ek anastasis—“resurrection from out among the dead ones.”

Thirdly, Paul says, “He Jesus will change my body to be like His body.”

So right there in Philippians 3 alone, I think the picture of Jesus being some wispy spirit that appeared to him on the road to Damascus doesn’t fit Paul’s own data.

Yes, that’s why Philippians is my favorite book. You can get so much useful theology out of it. Something about the resurrection in Phil 3, something about Jesus’ divinity in Phil 2, and loads of practical advice on stewardship, charity, fellowship, endurance and practical love for others throughout. Some of it takes a little digging, but that’s what commentaries are for, am I right? But I digress.

If you want to read something a little more challenging, I found a paper from the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) from their journal, where it talks more about soma and anastasis. If you want a bit of a challenge, download the PDF and read it. It’s by Kirk R. MacGregor, and the title is “1 Corinthians 15:3B–6A, 7 And The Bodily Resurrection Of Jesus.”

THE MARK OF THE BEAST: A BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL APPROACH

Apologetics for Parents, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Brian Chilton

The world suffers from great turmoil and distress. People are distrustful of one another, and they certainly do not trust their governmental representatives. Unfortunately, conspiracy theories have taken center stage. What was once the discourse of backyard talk has now become talking points on Capitol Hill. Numerous people have asked my thoughts on the COVID-19 vaccines and whether the vaccine could represent the mark of the beast. Vaccines are not the only things postulated to be the mark of the beast. At one time, it was thought that the electronic numbers used by credit cards could represent the mark of the beast. Doing my part to emphasize rational discourse and valid hermeneutical practices, it is necessary to investigate the source behind the mark of the beast.

In full disclosure, this article affirms the futurist perspective of the book of Revelation. Futurists believe that much of the book of Revelation speaks to future prophetic events that will play out in the end-times. Preterists represent the opposing view, instead believing that most of Revelation speaks of events that occurred in the first century. Thus, presuming the futurist position, what can we learn about the mark of the beast? Before we engage the mark of the beast, we must first read what the book of Revelation says about the dubious mark.

With the text in hand, two questions need to be considered. First, what is the mark of the beast when kept in the proper context? Second, what can the other theological teachings of the Bible tell us about the mark of the beast?

What is the mark of the beast?

The mark of the beast is found in the larger context of Revelation 13 which deals with the second beast. It must be understood that the powers of darkness attempt to mimic God at every turn. God is Triune, existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the book of Revelation, Satan tries to copy this trait coming as a dragon (Satan), a beast (antichrist), and a false prophet. The beast of the sea in the early part of Revelation 13 most likely is the antichrist, a worldly political leader filled with the power of Satan. The antichrist is essentially Satan incarnate.

The beast of the earth is most likely the false prophet. The antichrist imitates Christ’s resurrection by suffering a perceived mortal wound and is healed from it (Rev. 13:13). People worship the beast because they think him to be godlike (Rev. 13:4). Remember, Satan wants to be God and desires people to worship him rather than God.

The second beast arises in Revelation 13:11. The second beast is a religious leader who is also known as the “false prophet” (Rev. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). The false prophet appears to be gentle, represented by the “two horns like a lamb” (Rev. 13:11), but speaks and behaves viciously. The second beast deceives (Rev. 12:19) through signs and wonders, most likely faked, serving the lie of Satan (2 Thess. 2:9). Here is the critical point to consider: the false prophet leads people to erect an image paying homage to the first beast (the antichrist) so as to worship the first beast. Three things take center stage when identifying the mark of the beast.

The mark is a seal of worship to the unholy trinity. It is uncertain whether the mark is an actual mark or not. It could be. But no matter if it is a physical branding or not, it is undeniable that the mark is a seal of devotion to Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet. In this case, Satan imitates the Father, the antichrist imitates the Son, and the false prophet imitates the Holy Spirit. Paying homage to an idol was not unique in John’s day as will be shown later in the article.

Is the mark a secretive thing? No! The mark is not something that one takes unaware. Whatever the mark is, it is taken as a cognizant and willing act of devotion to the unholy trinity. The mark will be public, and everyone will know it when it comes. A person taking the mark of the beast publicly identifies oneself with the antichrist much as a baptized believer is publicly identified with Christ.

What does 666 mean? The number hexakoioi hexekonta hex (666) is the numerical value of the antichrist’s name. Each letter in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic—the languages of the Bible—held numerical value. Arabic numbers had not been invented by this time. Thus, each word and name hold a numerical value in the biblical text. To calculate the numerical value for each word, the numbers for each letter were added. Jesus’s name equals the numerical value of 888. 8 is a number representing new beginnings and resurrection as it is one digit higher than the number of perfection—the number 7. The beast’s name is one digit below perfection—the number 6. Thus, 666 represents the name of the antichrist and his unholy nature. Ironically, the name Kaiser Nero equaled the value 666. John is telling his readers, who were knowledgeable of Nero’s horrific exploits against believers, that the future antichrist would be like Nero, but only worse and on a global scale.

How does this text merge with other theological teachings in the Bible?

Already, it has been noted how the mark of the beast finds its meaning in the context of Revelation 13. However, three additional theological teachings help to further understand the mark of the beast. When a text becomes difficult to interpret, it must be gauged against other major teachings in Scripture. Clear teachings clarify obscure texts. Additionally, biblical themes are repeated throughout the entirety of Scripture. As such, consider three important truths.

Mark of God. Not only is there a mark of the beast, but Scripture also mentions a mark of God. It is amazing that the next chapter is not read when examining the mark of the beast. In chapter 14, Jesus (aka., “The Lamb of God”) stands on Mount Zion with 144,000 of his children. The 144,000 are most likely Jewish believers saved during the horrible time of tribulation. Nonetheless, notice what is on the foreheads of the 144,000. They had “his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Rev. 14:1). In Revelation 22, the new heaven and earth are occupied by those who have God’s name written on their foreheads. The text reads, “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). In the OT, believers were told to bind the Word of God on their foreheads and hands (Deut. 6:8). The Israelites took this command seriously as they created phylacteries that contained Scripture, placed Scriptural passages in these boxes, and bound them to their foreheads and wrists. But was this command intended to be taken literally or metaphorical?

God says that he will write his word on the hearts of his people (Heb. 8:10). This leads me to wonder whether the mark is a literal mark at all. Perhaps the mark is one’s identification or allegiance to someone or something. The person’s wholesale allegiance to a person or entity may be what the mark represented all along.

Unpardonable sin. When thinking about the mark, a very important teaching given by Jesus himself must be considered. When accused of performing miracles at the hand of Satan, Jesus first instructs his accusers that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Matt. 12:25–26). Jesus then notes, “Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven” (Matt. 12:31). The only sin that is unforgivable is the rejection of the Holy Spirit’s work in the life of Jesus. That is, the unpardonable sin is to reject Christ unto death. Whether the mark is a literal branding or an allegiance of the heart, the thing that makes the mark unforgivable is the rejection of Christ accompanying it. The mark is taken willingly and publicly whether it be for devotion to Christ or Satan. Even now, people bear a mark of Christ or a mark of the beast in their own lives depending on who rules their heart.

Comparison to the book of Daniel and John’s day. One last point needs to be made before wrapping up. This point is a historical one that bears upon the interpretation of the text. People of John’s day would have known what John had in mind when speaking of the mark of the beast. The Greco-Roman world was replete with idols of gods and goddesses. People were instructed to worship certain gods and goddesses in their region which differed according to the location and the god chosen to worship. The pantheon of manmade idols were thought to embody the gods they represented. Scripture notes that when people worshiped these idols, they actually worshiped demons (Deut. 32:16–17). Remember, Satan and his army desire the devotion that God deserves for themselves.

The book of Revelation finds many parallels to the OT. This may be an area that finds a root in the OT as well. In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar set up a 90-foot-tall by 9-foot-wide idol and ordered everyone to worship the idol (Dan. 3:1–3). Whoever did not worship the idol was thrown into a furnace of fire (Dan. 3:6). Nebuchadnezzar’s command caused a problem for the devout Daniel, Hananiah (Shadrach), Mishael (Meshach), and Azariah (Abednego). Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah chose the flames of the furnace over worshiping a false god because they knew that only Yahweh deserved such praise. However, after being thrown into the furnace of fire, they were spared by a Fourth Man walking in the fire with them who appeared as a divine being (Dan. 3:25). With this backdrop in mind, the mark of the beast becomes ever more clear. The mark of the beast represents a person’s allegiance to the dragon (Satan), the beast of the sea (antichrist), and the beast of the earth (false prophet).

Conclusion

The mark of the beast is not so much about an actual mark as it is about one’s allegiance to the powers of darkness. Each person already bears a mark of some sort in one’s heart and life. Scripture indicates that the Holy Spirit is the seal of God upon the believer’s life (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13–14; 4:30). Either a person is marked by God or marked by Satan. A person’s allegiance can change from the influence of Satan to God by the power of God working in them. But going back to the mark of the beast, people do not need to constantly worry about being deceived into taking a mark that will eliminate their chances of entering heaven. Vaccines and electronic devices do not represent what John had in mind when he recorded the revelation of God. He speaks of a person’s public denial of Christ and affirmation of a public, political leader who is directed and filled with the power of Satan. With this in mind, as Joshua challenged the Hebrews, we are challenged as well to “choose this day whom [we] will serve” (Josh. 24:15).

CHRISTIANS SHAMING CHRISTIANS OVER VOTING FOR TRUMP: 3 STRAWMAN ARGUMENTS THAT NEED TO STOP

Culture CrossExamined, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Natasha Crain

There’s been a sad fallout among Christians now that the election chaos has (mostly) come to an end and a new administration is taking over: Christians are shaming other Christians for having voted for Trump.

It’s one thing to say, “As a Christian, I didn’t support Trump because (fill in the blank with disagreements regarding his character or the party platform).” But it’s entirely another thing to mischaracterize why many Christians did vote for Trump and then attempt to make that into a shameful thing. Not only is that uncharitable between brothers and sisters in Christ, but it fuels the flames of the resentment non-believers have toward politically conservative Christians.

When a person mischaracterizes another’s position on something in order to attack it, that’s called a strawman fallacy. And there’s a lot of strawmanning going on right now.

Here are three big ones.

Strawman 1: If you voted for Trump, you did so because you want Christians to have political “power.”

Ed Stetzer, a dean and professor at Wheaton College, published an opinion piece in USA Today this week titled, “Evangelicals face a reckoning: Donald Trump and the future of our faith.” The subtitle is, “We must live up to our calling as evangelicals: to proclaim Jesus Christ to the world, rather than betray Him to sustain worldly power.”

The subtitle is simply puzzling—if a person voted for Trump, they weren’t living up to their calling as evangelicals because they were chasing after worldly power? This is a strawman, but to understand why, we need to understand what it means to be a secular country—and what it doesn’t.

The United States constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This so-called Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is what people commonly refer to as the principle of “separation of church and state” (though that term is nowhere in the Constitution). The Establishment Clause ensures that the government will not establish a state-supported church and will not force individuals to practice a particular religion. That’s a great thing! It’s freedom of religion. But that says nothing about how individuals should or shouldn’t use their religious beliefs to inform their participation in public life. Secular doesn’t mean we’re supposed to create some kind of neutral, value-free society and keep our worldviews to ourselves. That’s impossible. Every society necessarily makes judgments about what’s good and bad, and ultimately those are worldview questions.

Now, with that in mind, does that mean Christians want power when they vote a certain way? If by power, you mean that they want to advocate for the values that are consistent with their worldview, then the answer is yes, and that’s not a problem. That’s what one should expect to happen in a secular country, where the state isn’t enforcing the authority of a single religion. Everyone is free to vote according to their conscience. If Christians supposedly want “power” because they vote according to their worldview and values, then every single person voting could be accused of the same thing.

One has to wonder, then, what Stetzer has in mind when he cautions Christians not to “betray” Jesus to sustain worldly “power.” Whatever a person thinks of Trump personally, it should be obvious that many Christians (if not the vast majority) were not voting for him as some kind of godly individual, but rather for the platform he represents—particularly over and against the Democratic platform. To suggest that Christians who chose the Republican platform over the Democratic platform are somehow betraying Jesus by voting for someone in the interest of “power” is just outlandish. Conservative voters aren’t chasing power any more than liberal voters are. They’re just voting for the platform that best aligns with their values, even if the candidate representing that platform doesn’t always embody those values. (Does any candidate ever?)

Strawman 2: If you think your faith should inform your political views, you’re a “Christian Nationalist.”

This phrase (“Christian Nationalist”) is getting tossed around everywhere lately. According to an organization called “Christians Against Christian Nationalism,” the term refers to “a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civil life…it carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and militarism.” You can see an image from the organization below.

Let me just say I have literally never come across a Christian who would be considered a Christian Nationalist according to this description—and I follow a lot of online groups/social media communities with Christians all over the spectrum of belief. That’s not to say such people don’t exist (there are always extremists), but that they certainly don’t represent a large number of Christians.

Here’s the problem: People are slapping a strawman label of “Christian Nationalist” on anyone who voted for Trump. If a Christian Nationalist is someone who meets these criteria, then it’s ridiculous to say that all those voting conservative are “Nationalists.” However, I don’t think most people have a specific list such as this in mind when they use the term. They’re simply accusing Christians of mixing church and state because they voted for a platform according to their (Christian) values. To them, that’s “Christian Nationalism.” But, as I explained in the prior point, that shouldn’t even be seen as a problem! Again, it’s what’s expected in a secular country. We have freedom of religion—no state church—and can use that freedom to vote based on our conscience.

This point is closely related to the first point, but comes with a fancy label for extra shaming.

Strawman 3: If you’re concerned about the future of the country given the election results, you’re putting your faith in a person (Trump) rather than in Jesus.

I have seen numerous reminders on social media that we need to put our faith in Jesus, not a political savior. Sometimes these are meant as a simple encouragement, but a lot of times they come with the implication that those who are concerned about the direction of the country under Biden are putting their hope in politics instead of Jesus.

This is the ultimate strawman!

No one I know “worships” Trump or thinks that the President is some kind of replacement savior (not that that means such people don’t exist, but those who do certainly don’t represent the average Christian). People who voted for him may believe that his policies will place the country in a better direction than those of Biden, but that isn’t a confusion about where our hope comes from. When Christians talk about hope in a biblical sense, we’re talking about the hope of eternal life. We may additionally have political hopes for our country’s direction, based on our worldview, but these are completely different kinds of hope. A person can have the hope of eternal life, the hope of a certain direction of the country, and deep concern about an election outcome all at the same time.

Christians are on the receiving end of all kinds of mischaracterizations by non-believers. When we strawman each other, we only add to those misunderstandings. Moving forward isn’t about how we fix our “reputation” for having voted for Trump (as some Christians seem to be concerned about); non-believers will never like our values, no matter who we vote for. It’s about having nuanced and charitable conversations about the best way to live out our faith in the public square…while accurately understanding and responding to one another’s views. Strawmen are easy to blow down, but the damage is hard to fix.

Four Ways We Can Revolt Against Big Tech

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Bob Perry

Big Tech is hostile to the Judeo-Christian worldview. As such, it is a threat to the free exchange of ideas, religious liberty, and our ability to practice and talk about our faith publicly. For those reasons, I’ve made the case that Christians should lead the revolt against Big Tech. But how can we do that? Politics is important but it is not the final answer. I’ll explain why. And then I’ll offer you four ways to help start a revolt against Big Tech.

A Word on Politics

Before I go further with this, I want to address the idea of Christians being involved in politics. Some believe that Christians shouldn’t have anything to do with politics. But I think that’s a ridiculous thing to say. Christians have an obligation to be involved in politics. Politics is where worldviews collide. And we are responsible to advocate for Christian ethics and actions in the public square. Politicians make laws. Laws protect and defend moral positions. If we don’t stand up for our moral positions, we will have to live with someone else’s.

We absolutely should be involved in politics. Always.

Politics Won’t Solve The Problem(s)

That said, the people who recognize the issues I’m addressing here are mostly seeking political solutions to the problem. There is talk of removing Rule 230 from the 1996 Communications Decency Act. That law — itself part of a broader telecom law — provides a legal “safe harbor” to protect internet companies from being sued for libel. The idea for Rule 230 was to promote the free exchange of ideas on the internet. It was meant to ensure that platforms like Facebook and Twitter (that just provide a forum) are not held accountable as editors (who determine what can or cannot be published). The idea was to promote free speech and diversity of opinions.

We see how that’s worked out. Facebook and Twitter do act like editors. They determine which views can be published. But they’re protected anyway.

Others are talking about breaking up the Big Tech monopolies. Monopolies have too much power, so that seems reasonable. But the problem with Big Tech is not that it has constructed monopolies. The problem is intellectual conformity and intolerance for diverse points of view. Big Tech is hostile to the Judeo-Christian worldview and to its values. Making big companies that are hostile to our ideas … into little companies that are hostile to our ideas doesn’t solve anything in the end.

The Essence of the Revolt

Removing Big Tech’s protective shield and breaking up the behemoths are both good things to do. The problem is that political solutions treat the symptoms, not the disease. And we don’t have time to wait for politicians anyway. They’re not reliable. And they’re mostly ineffective. Big Tech is not. Besides that, about half the politicians in this country share Big Tech’s ideological point of view. And that’s the problem that needs to be addressed.

So, I’d like to offer four suggestions. First, two things that all of us can start doing tomorrow. Then, two things that few of us can do, but all of us can encourage and support.

1. Train People to Think Critically

This is the most important thing of all. It isn’t emphasized in our schools. And it rarely happens in our churches. It’s difficult and time-consuming. You have to read things that may be a little over your head. And you have to be willing to challenge yourself and others to get better at it. Iron sharpens iron, after all.

People who think critically can spot errors in logic and call it out. They are comfortable at speaking out in defense of truth, goodness, and beauty as being objective features of the world we live in. The ability to do just that one thing will begin to upend everything that makes this culture the amoral, relativistic morass it has become.

Christians (in general) are notoriously bad at critical thinking. We need to change that. You need to change that. And you can start by taking on this simple book: Thinking About God: First Steps in Philosophy, by Gregory Ganssle. Don’t be scared off because the title has the word “philosophy” in it. Philosophy is just two Greek words crammed together: philo (love) + sophia (wisdom). Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Every Christian should embrace it.

There are countless other books, websites, and parachurch organizations that can help you in this endeavor. I talk about them on this site all the time.

Stay tuned.

2. Use Alternatives

Remember that the fuel for Big Tech behemoths is the revenue they generate by exploiting the personal data you freely give them. They use that data along with your social media interactions, internet searches, and browsing history to sell your information to companies that want it. It’s very simple:

You are the product

Knowing that tells you all you need to know about how to undermine Big Tech.

Quit selling yourself. Stop fueling the Big Tech Engine that is trying to squash you.

GOOGLE

As you can see, Google (which also owns YouTube) accounts for more than 90% of the market share for internet searches. When you type in a search, Google collects, curates, and sells information about your search and browsing history to advertisers.

So, here’s the complicated plan: Stop using Google, its Chrome browser, YouTube, and Gmail. The level of surveillance and data collection you allow them about your personal habits and interests is staggering. Every account or website login. Every message you send or receive. You will never be able to imagine how deeply embedded Google is in your life until you try to disentangle yourself from it all.

But there are plenty of other options.

Browsers: The Brave web browser is three times faster than Chrome and more secure. It doesn’t collect your private data or sell it to third parties. And it uses 35% less battery on mobile.

Search Engine: Qwant and Duck-Duck-Go are powerful search engines that don’t save your IP address, don’t save your search results, and don’t sell your private data. They just search.

Email: Do your own research but I have found Proton Mail and Tutanota to get consistently good reviews. Each offers a free version. Getting more features may cost you $3-$5/month. But remember the big difference. This makes them the product, not you.

If enough of us changed just these three things it would have a significant financial impact on Big Tech’s most notorious culprit, Google.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I’m not going to enter the “you-should-disconnect-from-social-media” debate. There are plenty of fantastic practical, ethical, and psychological reasons to do that. Even those who were instrumental in creating social media giants agree to that. They won’t let their own children have accounts on the platforms they created!

But I’m not here to virtue signal. And I’m not here to convince you that that’s what you should do. My goal is to do my little part to defund Big Tech. So, if you don’t think deleting your social media accounts is realistic, at least move them away from the monopolistic thought police.

The fact is there are alternatives to Facebook (MeWe), Twitter (Parler), YouTube (Rumble), and Instagram (VSCO) that will allow you to continue to participate in online “communities,” share things with one another, and interact much the same as you do now. The key is that using these alternatives takes the product (you) away from the Big Tech overlords. And the revenue you generate goes with it. These alternate platforms don’t collect or sell your data. They just provide a place to interact.

Most of them are still in their infancy. They don’t have as many features as the Big Guys. And right now, they are mostly populated by ideologues from the opposite point of view of their predecessors. But, as more and more of us abandon Big Tech, those alternatives will become more robust, diverse, and enjoyable. My point about the revolt against Big Tech is simply that we begin to strip it of its power. And this is a way to start doing that.

3. Build Big Tech Alternatives

If you have the knowledge, skill, and means to create Big Tech alternatives, please get to work. As Peter Rex points out, we need tech companies that are far removed from the Big Tech centers of Silicon Valley and Seattle. But, more importantly, we need them further removed from the toxic, self-perpetuating, Big Tech ideology that is threatening to crush free thought.

Big Tech has become quite good at mastering people. We need alternatives that serve people.

The beauty in this is that there is a huge market for creating alternative tech companies. And it is ripe to be tapped. Offering people an ethically superior alternative to the Big Tech masters of the culture could prove to be extremely lucrative.

4. Invest in Free-Thinking

The great majority of us aren’t tech wizards. We can’t build Big Tech alternatives. But we certainly can support those who do. This includes investing in technology entrepreneurs and supporting companies that are creating new ways to compete with the behemoths. The simple act of changing your internet browsing and social media platforms are examples. But if you have the means to actually invest in competitors to these Big Tech companies, please do.

It also includes supporting private high schools and independent universities that refuse to play along with the politically correct mandates of the cultural thought police. I would say this is just as important as donating to your local church. The ramifications of not doing so are too menacing to ignore.

By this, I do not mean to say that we have to create and support Christian companies or schools. Honestly, I don’t even know what would make a company “Christian.” But we can certainly seek to support those that are not hostile to the Judeo-Christian worldview like Big Tech is today.

A Win-Win Example

In 2014, Mozilla (the company that produced the Firefox web browser) forced Brendon Eich out of the company he founded. Why? Because six years earlier he had made a small donation to a campaign to oppose the Proposition 8 same-sex “marriage” initiative in California. Eich never talked about it or pushed his views at work. He never publicly addressed the issue. In fact, no one he worked with knew anything about his views until public records exposed his contribution to oppose Proposition 8 in 2014.

Brendan Eich is reportedly a politically middle-of-the-road Catholic. But he held the wrong view on same-sex “marriage.” So, he had to be destroyed. This is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. Rod Dreher calls it “soft totalitarianism.” And it is our collective future if Big Tech is allowed to continue down the path it has chosen. But here’s why I bring it up.

Brendan Eich didn’t just curl up in a ball and surrender. When he was forced out of Mozilla, he gathered investors to start a new company. There, he developed the Brave web browser I mentioned earlier. His story embodies everything I’ve been talking about. The platform is private and ideologically neutral. Using it supports a guy who created an alternative to the Big Tech default technology and ideology. Win-win.

Don’t Lose Sight Of The Purpose

I started this two-post blog series with a video of Peter Rex at Hillsdale College. Rex is a billionaire and tech entrepreneur. You and I are not. Hillsdale College is one of the very few institutes of higher learning in this country that still believes in and encourages free inquiry. You’ve probably never heard of it. But these are the kinds of people and organizations we need more of. If the hundreds of millions of faithful people in this country are willing to follow and support people like Peter Rex and places like Hillsdale College, we can start a revolt against Big Tech. And we can change the culture.

We certainly owe it to our kids and grandkids to try.

How To Have A Challenging Conversation With Someone You Love

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Jason Jiménez

Let’s be honest. No one looks forward to having a challenging conversation with a friend or family member. The very thought of saying something that might hurt their feelings sends quivers down your spine. And so rather than confront the problem, you keep avoiding the talk and land up tossing it aside with the other unresolved issues.

But ask yourself, is avoiding hard conversations with a loved one improving or damaging my relationships?

As a Christian, it’s not wise to suppress your feelings or avoid expressing how you feel about something with someone you love, especially if there’s a problem hindering your relationship. A genuine relationship is one built on openness and honesty.

So, whatever the challenge or difficulty you are having with a loved one, here are five priorities to follow that will motivate you to have that uncomfortable conversation.

Priority One – Pray Before The Difficult Talk

You might be thinking the first priority seems a bit obvious. And you’re right. Prayer is evident because it’s essential. Yet, so many Christians skip over prayer and dive right into whatever is bothering them. However, the Bible states very clearly, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). When you and your friend (or family member) come together to talk about some sensitive matters, praying together will help settle the nerves and transfer the focus to the Lord. It’s also important to express your gratitude for one another and ask God to give wisdom and understanding to work things out.

Priority Two – Converse, Not Lecture

When someone wrongs you, the natural thing to do is attack the person who hurt you. But, according to 1 Peter 3:8, you are to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” as a Christian. Therefore, the last thing you want to do (no matter how innocent you feel you are) is to take an accusatory tone with your friend. Your approach is to honor them as a person made in God’s image—not disparage them if they don’t conform to your point of view. Your starting position isn’t “I’m going to set you straight for hurting me.” It should be, “I want to understand why you did what you did because I love you.”

Priority Three – Show Respect

As human beings, we crave respect. A good technique when engaging in a challenging conversation is to focus on honoring the other person above yourself. When you “show proper respect” (1 Pet. 2:17) to someone, it not only acts as a diffuser but will also invite the other person to address you with respect. Think of it this way, honoring one another leads to respectful dialogue.

Priority Four – Be Open And Honest

It follows that if you properly employ the first three priorities, the fourth one will likely fall into place. However, there are so many terrifying prospects that can hinder vulnerability: insecurities, failures, fear of rejection, and issues of trust. Yet, both of you have to be willing to express real emotion and a willingness to work things out for the two of you to make any progress. This will take time, so make sure you don’t rush or fake it.

Priority Five – Ask For Forgiveness

Jesus tells his followers, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23-24). The word “reconciled” conveys an immediate response to make peace with the offended person. Instead of making excuses for your actions, it’s always best to take responsibility for any wrongdoing and quickly resolve matters before they get out of hand.

Where is Our Faith?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Brian Chilton

People are stressed. Sure, that is the understatement of the year. But it’s true. People are stressed for numerous reasons. Political issues, the pandemic, isolation, and financial strain are among many of the catalysts causing distress for individuals. Christians are among those who seem to be distressed the most. But why? I do not claim any super-spirituality for myself by any stretch of the imagination. However, it must be asked, where is our faith? Christians say they have faith. But does faith not especially prove true when things are rough?

This is a question that was posed to the disciples. Let your mind go back to an event preserved in Mark 4:35–41. The time: The first-century, circa AD 28. The place: The Sea of Galilee in Israel. Jesus, fully knowing what would happen, said to the disciples, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the sea” (Mark 4:35).[1] Without causing a stir, the disciples agreed. They were probably excited to perhaps catch a fish or two while they were on the water. Fishermen love to fish. Additionally, the company of disciples had been inundated with large crowds pressing to see and hear from Jesus. This trip was a welcome getaway from the bustling life of ministry; one that led them to act as Jesus’s security guards trying to keep the mobs from overwhelming Jesus.

Tragedy struck what should have been a pleasant trip while they were midway across the sea. A great windstorm came upon them. The power of the wind stirred up the sea causing waves to crash into the boat. The disciples struggled to keep the water out of the boat. They were fighting a losing battle. More water entered the boat than what they could cast out. The disciples thought they were doomed. Worse yet, Jesus was not bothered by their conundrum. He was found lying asleep in the stern of the boat. Distressed people are annoyed by other people who remain calm. Didn’t Jesus care about their plight? How could he remain sleeping? An unnamed disciple, most likely Peter, yelled at Jesus, saying, “Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” (Mark 4:38). What was Jesus’s problem, anyway? How dare Jesus remain calm when everything was going haywire?

Jesus responded. When Jesus responds, things happen. He stood up, probably wiping the sleep from his eyes and perhaps cracking his neck, stretched out his arms, and said, “Silence! Be still” (Mark 4:39)! At that, the wind immediately stopped blowing and the sea became tranquil and serene. Terrified out of their wits, the disciples could not believe what they just witnessed. Jesus turned to them with steely eyes and asked, “Why are you still afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40).

Jesus continues to ask his disciples this question. This time, he asks it of us. Jesus is in heaven, still alive and well after having defeated death and ascending to the right hand of the Father. Here we are today facing our own storms. Yet Jesus’s challenging words remain. Where is our faith? This question challenges at least three areas of our trust in him.

Where is Our Faith in God’s Probity?

Probity is the righteous characteristic of holding strong moral principles, honesty, and decency. God is the absolute good (1 John 1:5). God is the source of goodness (3 John 11). If God is the absolute good and the source of goodness, then God has the best of intentions from even the most difficult of circumstances. People generally want results without putting in the effort. Most preachers want to be like Billy Graham but very few are willing to put in the hours of study and preparation that Dr. Graham did. Many young men want to look like famed bodybuilders, but few want to put in the work to get there. Likewise, people want to be sanctified, but they don’t want to endure the process that God uses to build up his people. Do we trust in the goodness of God?

Where is Our Faith in God’s Power?

The disciples were stunned at the power that Jesus demonstrated. But should they have expected any different from Jesus? Scripture indicates that Jesus was not only the Son of God but that Jesus was also instrumental in creation (Col. 1:16). Before the disciples are criticized for their lack of faith, modern Christians must ask themselves if they still believe in the power of God. If they do, then they will realize that God is greater than any pandemic. They will also realize that God is greater than any political power. The believer should still live responsibility, seeking out the best for those around them. However, one should not be overcome with fear. Do we trust in the power of God?

Where is Our Faith in God’s Promises?

Here is the clincher. Jesus told us that pandemics, wars, and national powers were going to get worse as the timing of Christ’s return hastens. The closer the world gets to the return of Christ, the more chaotic the world becomes. Jesus said, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be alarmed; these things must take place, but it is not yet the end” (Mark 13:7). He goes on to say, “There will be famines, and earthquakes in various places” (Matt. 24:7). Interestingly, some translations add epidemics or pandemics to the list. No matter whether epidemics should be added or not, the pale green horseman of the book of Revelation notes that the world will be plagued by pandemics before the return of Christ (Rev. 6:8). Jesus teaches that all these things are but the “beginning of birth pains” (Mark 13:8). A woman begins to experience labor pains before the baby is eventually born. Likewise, global and national disturbances are but labor pains notifying individuals that Jesus’s return is imminent. God has already laid out his prophetic plans. Do we trust in God’s promises?

Conclusion

Perhaps our lack of faith speaks more to the biblical illiteracy of our times than anything else. Maybe the reason that people have no more trust in God’s plan is that preachers and teachers are not emphasizing the teachings and prophetic message of Jesus. Or it could be that the modern absence of faith in God originates from a trust in self more than a trust in the Savior. No matter the cause, the modern believer needs to realize that pandemics, wars, and disturbances do not take God by surprise. God is working to bring us to a place where pandemics, wars, and disturbances do not exist. Believers have every reason to trust God, especially in times like these.

How Reason Supports Belief In The Existence of God

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

Many atheists today hold the view that faith and reason are opposites. They view Christians as believing in God “despite the evidence” instead of because of it, and as long as they hold that view, they will not be open to considering the evidence for God’s existence. In my last post, I discussed the importance of precision in language, so as to convey the correct notion that reason underlies faith, as it underlies all sound thinking. Skeptics who realize that there is nothing irrational about “having faith” may eventually be open to considering the evidence for the God of the Bible.

As a picture paints a thousand words, good analogies can go a long way toward making intellectual concepts like this clear. They can help the listener see that they do in fact rely on “faith” all the time. Because no one can know all things with complete certainty, a decision to believe that something is true – that it describes the way things really are – is a decision that relies on faith. We all do it, often intuitively and without much thought because it is simply the way our minds work.

Since the specific question at issue when considering God’s existence is whether “someone” is there, analogies that make that point can be helpful. Of course, the easiest way to know someone is there is to actually see the person. That would constitute direct evidence. But you can also know someone is there by deduction or inference. The footsteps you see in the sand are pretty powerful indicators that someone was recently walking by. Mail-in your mailbox did not spontaneously appear. Or imagine being a police officer coming upon the scene of a burglary; you will strongly suspect someone is inside if you see the broken front door lock and hear movement inside. You may be wrong, but it would be rational for you to conclude that someone is there. If you bring in a police dog that moves to a particular closet in the house, you can be quite sure that someone is behind the door. Despite lacking direct or conclusive knowledge, you would not dismiss these conclusions as being based “on faith,” but would instead recognize that you are employing reason to form conclusions about things you cannot directly see.

Now at this point, the atheist may say “Okay that makes some sense. I can deduce ‘someone is there’ from circumstantial evidence, but I already know that people exist, so it is no surprise that a particular person might be on the beach, or delivering mail, or hiding in the house. Now you want me to believe in a God that no one has any direct experience with?” Yes, in fact, I do.

While certainly different in magnitude, the universe – like the sand on the beach or the contents of the mailbox – is a canvas upon which evidence of God’s existence can be seen. Ponder for a moment the exquisite order and complexity of the universe, the information embedded in life, the existence of consciousness, morality, music, and math – all these bear witness to the Designer’s hand. They are discrete bits of evidence upon which a comprehensive circumstantial case can be built. Science, in other words, can provide the tools, and furnish the support, for a well-ground belief in the need for a transcendent Creator.

The scientific community is already embarked upon a similar exercise, in the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence. All around the globe, radio telescopes are probing the distant reaches of space, hoping to pick up the telltale signals of intelligent life. Frequency ranges have been devoted to this pursuit by international agreement, so as to increase the chance that signal pollution from Earth-bound sources does not interfere. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been committed to this effort to find what no one definitively can say exists – life in the cosmos. The effort is called SETI – the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.

These are not religious fundamentalists at work; they are highly educated and trained scientists who know what so many in academia refuse to acknowledge – that reason can be employed to conclude that “something is out there.” What are these scientists hoping to find? Because they believe they can distinguish random noise – things naturally occurring – from signals that are specified and complex, they believe they can see the blueprint of intelligence in signals that are not random but instead designed to convey information. They look primarily for mathematical equations, trusting that universal laws will be knowable to any sentient being and will be a means to communicate, even if our spoken languages are different. NASA did something similar with its deep space probes Pioneer and Voyager; information encoded in the universal language of math and music even now hurtle further into the abyss, awaiting, perhaps, discovery by some advanced intelligence.

Now, let’s suppose that these scientists begin receiving a coded message. With effort, they eventually decode the language, finding that it consists of four letters. These four letters are arranged into billions of lines of code, which the scientists ultimately realize constitute a blueprint to build an extremely complex machine – a self-replicating machine with thousands of interdependent parts that must assemble themselves, correct errors as they occur and continue functioning in harmony decade after decade. What if scientists could begin working with this code to make changes and to alter the natural order of things? Would this not be enough to convince even the most skeptical that “something” highly intelligent and incredibly powerful was out there? That we are not alone?

So why aren’t more people convinced. After all, we already are the recipients of such directed intelligence. The four-letter language that codes billions of lines of instructions to build a complex machine is, of course, DNA. In short, while the scientific community remains largely materialistic, that façade is starting to crack, as more is learned about the incredibly information-rich nature of DNA, as well as the fine-tuned nature of the laws of the universe. Such information, and such laws, are not random. While some continue to insist that DNA evolved from lifeless matter, they have no mechanism to explain the beginning of DNA. Even the earliest single celled life form required such massive amounts of information that self-assembly is simply implausible.

We all know it intuitively: information requires a source. This alone does not prove the God of the Bible. But knowing that “something” is out there is not a matter of “faith.” Reason itself demands it.

There are none so blind as those who, despite the evidence, continue to refuse to see.

5 Signs Your Church Might be Heading Toward Progressive Christianity

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Alisa Childers

Several years ago, my husband and I began attending a local Evangelical, non-denominational church, and we loved it. We cherished the sense of community we found among the loving and authentic people we met there, and the intelligent, “outside the box” pastor who led our flock with thought-provoking and insightful sermons. Sadly, the church started going off the rails theologically, and after about a year and a half, we made the difficult decision to leave. Today that church is a self-titled “Progressive Christian Community.”

Back then I had never heard of “Progressive Christianity,” and even now it is difficult to pin down what actually qualifies someone as a Progressive Christian, due to the diversity of beliefs that fall under that designation. However, there are signs—certain phrases and ideas—that seem to be consistent in Progressive circles. Here are 5 danger signs to watch for in your church:

1. There is a lowered view of the Bible

One of the main differences between Progressive Christianity and Historic Christianity is its view of the Bible. Historically, Christians have viewed the Bible as the Word of God and authoritative for our lives. Progressive Christianity generally abandons these terms, emphasizing personal belief over the biblical mandate.

Comments you might hear:

The Bible is a human book…
I disagree with the Apostle Paul on that issue…
The Bible condones immorality, so we are obligated to reject what it says in certain places…
The Bible “contains” the word of God…

2. Feelings are emphasized over facts

In Progressive churches, personal experiences, feelings, and opinions tend to be valued above objective truth. As the Bible ceases to be viewed as God’s definitive word, what a person feels to be true becomes the ultimate authority for faith and practice.

Comments you might hear:

That Bible verse doesn’t resonate with me…
I thought homosexuality was a sin until I met and befriended some gay people…
I just can’t believe Jesus would send good people to hell…

3. Essential Christian doctrines are open for re-interpretation

Progressive author John Pavlovitz wrote, “There are no sacred cows [in Progressive Christianity]….Tradition, dogma, and doctrine are all fair game, because all pass through the hands of flawed humanity.” Progressive Christians are often open to re-defining and re-interpreting the Bible on hot-button moral issues like homosexuality and abortion, and also cardinal doctrines such as the virgin conception and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The only sacred cow is “no sacred cows.”

Comments you might hear:

The resurrection of Jesus doesn’t have to be factual to speak truth…
The church’s historic position on sexuality is archaic and needs to be updated within a modern framework…
The idea of a literal hell is offensive to non-Christians and needs to be re-interpreted…

4. Historic terms are re-defined

There are some Progressive Christians who say they affirm doctrines like biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and authority, but they have to do linguistic gymnastics to make those words mean what they want them to mean. I remember asking a Pastor, “Do you believe the Bible is divinely inspired?” He answered confidently, “Yes, of course!” However, I mistakenly assumed that when using the word “inspired,” we both meant the same thing. He clarified months later what he meant—that the Bible is inspired in the same way and on the same level as many other Christian books, songs, and sermons. This, of course, is not how Christians have historically understood the doctrine of divine inspiration.

Another word that tends to get a Progressive make-over is the word “love.” When plucked out of its biblical context, it becomes a catch-all term for everything non-confrontative, pleasant, and affirming.

Comments you might hear:

God wouldn’t punish sinners—He is love…
Sure, the Bible is authoritative—but we’ve misunderstood it for the first 2,000 years of church history…
It’s not our job to talk to anyone about sin—it’s our job to just love them…

5. The heart of the gospel message shifts from sin and redemption to social justice

There is no doubt that the Bible commands us to take care of the unfortunate and defend those who are oppressed. This is a very real and profoundly important part of what it means to live out our Christian faith. However, the core message of Christianity—the gospel—is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and resurrected, and thereby reconciled us to God. This is the message that will truly bring freedom to the oppressed.

Many Progressive Christians today find the concept of God willing His Son to die on the cross to be embarrassing or even appalling. Sometimes referred to as “cosmic child abuse,” the idea of blood atonement is de-emphasized or denied altogether, with social justice and good works enthroned in its place.

Comments you might hear:

Sin doesn’t separate us from God—we are made in His image and He called us good…
God didn’t actually require a sacrifice for our sins—the first Christians picked up on the pagan practice of animal sacrifice and told the Jesus story in similar terms…
We don’t really need to preach the gospel—we just need to show love by bringing justice to the oppressed and provision to the needy…

Conclusion:

Identifying the signs is not always obvious—sometimes they are subtle and mixed with a lot of truth. Progressive Christianity can be persuasive and enticing but carried out to its logical end, it is an assault on the foundational framework of Christianity, leaving it disarmed of its saving power.

We shouldn’t be surprised to find some of these ideas infiltrating our churches. Jesus warned us, “Watch out for false prophets” who “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). So if you spot any of these 5 danger signs in your place of worship, it might be time to pray about finding fellowship in a more biblically faithful church community.

Tag Archive for: Christianity

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A Lack of Obviousness Does Not Mean Poor Evidential Support

Couldn’t God Have Given Us Stronger Evidence?

Why Does God Require of Us So Much Work?

Where is God?

What About Unanswered Prayer?

Conclusion

Footnotes

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What is the mark of the beast?

How does this text merge with other theological teachings in the Bible?

Conclusion

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Strawman 1: If you voted for Trump, you did so because you want Christians to have political “power.”

Strawman 2: If you think your faith should inform your political views, you’re a “Christian Nationalist.”

Strawman 3: If you’re concerned about the future of the country given the election results, you’re putting your faith in a person (Trump) rather than in Jesus.

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A Word on Politics

Politics Won’t Solve The Problem(s)

The Essence of the Revolt

1. Train People to Think Critically

2. Use Alternatives

GOOGLE

3. Build Big Tech Alternatives

4. Invest in Free-Thinking

A Win-Win Example

Don’t Lose Sight Of The Purpose

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Priority One – Pray Before The Difficult Talk

Priority Two – Converse, Not Lecture

Priority Three – Show Respect

Priority Four – Be Open And Honest

Priority Five – Ask For Forgiveness

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Where is Our Faith in God’s Probity?

Where is Our Faith in God’s Power?

Where is Our Faith in God’s Promises?

Conclusion

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1. There is a lowered view of the Bible

Comments you might hear:

2. Feelings are emphasized over facts

Comments you might hear:

3. Essential Christian doctrines are open for re-interpretation

Comments you might hear:

​4. Historic terms are re-defined

Comments you might hear:

​5. The heart of the gospel message shifts from sin and redemption to social justice

Comments you might hear:

Conclusion:

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Tag Archive for: Christianity

4. Historic terms are re-defined

5. The heart of the gospel message shifts from sin and redemption to social justice