Tag Archive for: Gospel

Why the Sheer Persistence of Antisemitism Seems Unnatural

One thing is certain: antisemitism—indeed, outright Jew-hatred—is not merely an ancient problem. It remains disturbingly prevalent and resilient today. From Pharaoh and Haman in the biblical narrative, to the exiles under oppressive empires, through medieval Europe with its deicide charges (blaming Jews for the death of Jesus), blood libels, and well-poisoning myths, antisemitism has taken many forms. It appeared in pagan Rome, medieval Christendom, and in various Islamic contexts. We have seen economic scapegoating, ghettos, expulsions, and later racialized antisemitism under Nazism, followed by conspiracy theories and, in our own day, a viscous anti-Zionism and what Matt Walsh has called “Jew Derangement Syndrome.”

The more I observe debates about Israel online—I see some of the most vile and hateful rhetoric imaginable—along with antisemitic attacks across the world. The sheer excess and durability of this hatred seem to go beyond normal political, ethnic, or economic rivalries.

Today, some have become deeply invested in what might be called “Palestinianism,” adopting a simplistic oppressed/oppressor narrative in which the Israeli government is portrayed as the worst evil on the global stage. This fixation often leads to selective moral outrage, ignoring or minimizing other major humanitarian crises around the world. Whether Israel is guilty of every accusation circulating in the media is a complex and separate discussion. What is clear, however, is that the hatred and vitriol frequently extend far beyond the policies of the Israeli government and spill over onto Jewish people everywhere.

Many who spew antisemitic rhetoric are simply absorbing what they read and hear online. Yet the deeper point remains: this hostility toward Jews keeps reappearing across wildly different cultures, ideologies, and historical periods.

For my part, I embrace Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and the Messiah of the nations. You cannot divorce Jesus’ ministry from the Jewish people or from Israel. The roots of the Christian faith are thoroughly Jewish.

For many of us who reflect seriously on this phenomenon, a basic intuition arises: Why this people—everywhere, across millennia? This intuition leads some to consider that there may be more at work than merely social, political, or economic causes. A spiritual explanation begins to appear plausible.

The deepest explanation for this long-standing, irrational, and persistent hatred of the Jewish people may involve demonic opposition. The patterns of antisemitism we continue to witness today often manifest in familiar forms:

  • Racial/Ethnic Hatred:Discrimination against Jews based on ethnicity or group identity.
  • Economic Conspiracy Theories:Resentment fueled by myths about Jewish wealth and power.
  • Scapegoating:Blaming Jews for social, political, or economic problems.
  • Deicide Theory:The belief that “the Jews” are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. While certain Jewish leaders opposed Jesus and played a role in the events leading to His crucifixion, Scripture also recognizes the decisive role of the Roman authorities. Moreover, Christian theology affirms that Jesus willingly laid down His life for the salvation of humanity in accordance with God’s redemptive plan. For Christians, blaming Jews for the death of Jesus—when their own salvation depends upon that sacrifice—makes no rational sense.
  • “Chosen People” Resentment:Hostility toward Jews rooted in resentment over their biblical identity as God’s chosen people, which can provoke jealousy even among Christians. The secular nature of the modern state of Israel or of individual Jews does not negate their covenantal status within the biblical narrative.

Scripture teaches that God chose Israel as the people through whom (1) the Scriptures would come and (2) the Messiah would come. Jesus was Jewish. The apostles were Jewish. Salvation history is rooted in Israel.

From this framework, some Christians reason as follows: if Satan opposes God’s redemptive plan, it would make sense for him to target the people through whom that plan unfolds.

Jeremiah speaks powerfully to God’s enduring covenant faithfulness:

“Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: ‘If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.’ … ‘If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,’ declares the Lord.”
(Jeremiah 31:35–37)

A similar promise appears in Jeremiah 33:23–26, where God rebukes those who claim that He has rejected the families He chose and reaffirms His covenant with Israel and David.

Christians rejoice that God has kept His promises by preserving the Jewish people throughout history. Their continued existence testifies to the faithfulness and character of the God Christians worship. Yet, from a spiritual perspective, one could argue that this very faithfulness is what provokes satanic hostility. If the Jewish people were eradicated, God’s promises would appear void, and His character could be impugned. In that sense, antisemitism becomes not merely hatred of a people, but an indirect assault on the trustworthiness of God Himself.

In the end, as I continue to witness the resurgence and intensification of Jew-hatred across the world, purely naturalistic explanations seem increasingly inadequate on their own. Social, political, and economic factors help explain how antisemitism manifests in different eras, but they do not fully account for why this particular hatred persists with such tenacity across millennia. From a Christian worldview, a deeper spiritual conflict offers a more coherent account of this tragic and enduring phenomenon.

Recommended Resources:

Answering Islam by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD Set, Mp4 and Mp3)

Was Jesus Intolerant? by Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

 

Eric Chabot was raised in a mainline denomination in Columbus, Ohio, but he doesn’t really remember hearing too many teachings from Scripture—and definitely not any salvation messages. Although not Jewish himself, Eric grew up in a Jewish community, where most of his friends were Jewish. He attended countless Jewish holiday events, weddings, and numerous Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. His daily exposure to Jewish culture continued throughout his youth and into his college years. At age 24, Eric had never before met Jewish people who believed in Yeshua (Jesus). Invited by a friend to attend Beth Messiah, a messianic congregation led by a Jewish pastor, Eric heard the powerful and convicting message of salvation, for the first time, taught from the Book of Matthew. After becoming a believer a few weeks later, Eric felt a strong burden from God to share his faith in Yeshua with his Jewish friends. Through Beth Messiah Congregation, Eric grew spiritually and looked for opportunities to serve the Lord. He began to understand how God had strategically placed him around so many Jewish people, and he could see that God had a calling on his life. Eric also understood that he was fulfilling what Paul wrote in Romans 11:11 about the role of the Gentiles: “. . . to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.” Eric holds an M.A. in Religious Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary. Serving full-time as Midwest Ministry Representative for CJF Ministries, Eric uses his gift of evangelism to reach out to Jewish people in a variety of ways and venues. He speaks in local churches and conferences about the Jewish roots of the historic Christian faith (and other relevant topics) and also serves as director of Ratio Christi apologetics chapter on the campus of Ohio State University. A collection of come of his apologetics teachings is available on his YouTube channel. [https://www.cjfm.org/about-us/us-representatives/eric-chabot/biography/]

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The Current Argument from Information for the Existence of God

Introduction

The argument from information in contemporary terms is a novel teleological argument[1]  for the existence of God with its deepest roots in the mid-20th century. Most would describe its origins differently, including many proponents of this argument. They would begin their history of it with William Paley’s “watch in the heath” argument from 1802. Both arguments point to an object with unknown origin and reason from features of the object to the conclusion that it was designed by some intelligence rather than “naturally” occurring. Some modern design arguments are similar to Paley’s, such as Michael Behe’s irreducible complexity or Douglas Axe’s functional coherence. However, these types of arguments do not appeal to the concept of information as William Dembski’s specified complexity argument does. Ideas like irreducible complexity and Paley’s watch argument mostly appeal to a common-sense inference from the mechanical aspects of biology. But an argument from information is a different type of argument. Paley’s and others’ explication of what these features are simply could not have been understood the way modern information argument proponents understand it until the advent of information theory in the mid-20th century. Applying this argument to living things had to wait until the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, which showed that DNA is quite literally a digital message string exactly as information theory describes. Information theory deals with coded digital messages usually sent over long distances with modern technology. The contemporary argument from information as formulated by Dembski and others is intended to be the general logical form of many different types of design inferences, including all the ones mentioned above. In this article, I will explain what the contemporary argument from information is and show why it is among the most compelling arguments for the existence of God today.

What is Information?

First, we need to understand the difference between analog and digital information. Most people think “digital” just means “electronic.” However, in information theoretic terms, “digital” means “discrete” or “discontinuous.” Analog information is like the lines of a drawing or a geometric curve on a graph. In order to exactly copy this type of analog information, one would have to have a perfect replica of the drawing at every point of every line. Digital information is much different, because it only depends on the characters in a message string and the code in which those characters are used. If I changed the font of this document, that would change the analog information, but it would not change the digital information. Digital information is superior to analog in the sense that it is much harder to copy analog information or translate it to some other medium. Copying the Mona Lisa, for example, is making a copy of analog information. Copying this sentence is copying digital information, and it does not depend on one’s handwriting skill in the same way that copying the Mona Lisa would depend on one’s painting skill. Digital information is the kind of information in DNA, and the kind referred to in the context of the information argument.

Digital information is measurable. Because it depends on a code, for example the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, the number of total possible message strings can be compared to the number of message strings allowed by a particular message to get a numerical ratio. So let’s say we use the alphabet with no additional characters to spell out the phrase “METHINKSITISLIKEAWEASEL.” Because there are twenty-three positions in this string, and twenty-six possible characters at each position, we can calculate the ratio of strings we actually have, which is one, compared to the total number of possible strings, which is 26^23, or ~3.5×10^32. Since we only have one string, this ratio would simply be 1/3.5×10^32 or 3.5×10^-32. Notice that if we increase the number of characters in the code, say by adding some punctuation characters like spaces and periods, this increases the denominator and makes the ratio smaller. Whereas, if we increase the number of possible message strings, say by making some of the letters in our message string variables that could be any character, that would increase the number in the numerator, making the final ratio bigger. Intuitively, we know that the amount of information would decrease if there were more possible message strings, meaning the message is less specific, and increase if the code were more complex, thus excluding more possibilities. So, in information theory we simply take the reciprocal of this ratio as our raw information measure. Normally it is converted into base 2, represented as a logarithm, and called “bits.”

Notice that DNA can be converted into an information metric in precisely this way. Since DNA has four characters, A, T, C, and G, we can take any length of DNA and turn it into a number 4^n, where n is the length of the DNA segment counted in bases. Protein sequences can also be converted into information metrics similarly. Since there are twenty amino acids normally in proteins (there are a few extremely rare additional ones), we can take any length of protein and turn it into a number 20^n, where n is the length of the protein sequence. We will return to this later.

Conceptually then, information is measured by comparing the number of possible messages represented by our message string to the total number of possible messages for any message string of the same length. This identifies information as a reduction of uncertainty. A character string of “xxxxxxxxxx” where “x” could be any number between zero and nine has no reduction of uncertainty and therefore no information. Whereas, a string of 0123456789 represents only one possible string out of 10^10 total possible strings for this length and this code. That is quite a lot of information. But the key point is that even very short message strings can contain a high amount of information by excluding a large number of possible message strings. And even having the same message string but making the code more complex eliminates more possibilities, so information can increase by changing the code even though the message string itself doesn’t change. Given that the size of the code used, which dictates the number of possibilities excluded, is usually the determining factor in how much information we have, it makes more sense in information theory to talk about the number of possibilities excluded than the number we actually have, which is usually only one, that is, the one identified by our message string. This is why information is defined as the exclusion of possibilities, also stated as a reduction in uncertainty.[2] This is called Shannon information after its originator, Claude Shannon.[3]

Complex Specified Information     

Shannon information does not necessarily have to mean anything. It can be a random jumble of characters signifying nothing. But there does seem to be a kind of information that intuitively seems to come from intelligence, like the words on this page. William Dembski noticed this and formulated a definition of this special kind of information. He called it specified complexity, or complex specified information. Complexity is essentially the same thing as Shannon information; it’s a measure of the improbability of an occurrence. This is just the thing that actually occurs compared to the number of possible things which could have occurred. Specification is harder to define. Originally, Dembski defined it as an independent pattern.

More recently, however, Dembski and Ewert have defined a specification as similar to a different kind of complexity called Kolmogorov complexity. Kolmogorov complexity is the shortest algorithm that can reproduce some Shannon information.[4] For example, if we have two copies of the same message string, a Shannon information measure would count that as double the amount of information of a single copy, but it seems intuitive that this is not really double the amount of information. Kolmogorov complexity would say that one can make an algorithm which is shorter than the two copies simply by having only one copy of the Shannon information, plus an algorithmic command to repeat it once, reproducing two copies of the same Shannon information. This would be much less information measured as Shannon information than two entire copies, but slightly more than just one copy. So Kolmogorov complexity is like the absolute minimum amount of algorithmic information required to represent some amount of Shannon information. This sounds somewhat redundant, but as the example above shows, it is a useful concept.

Similarly, Dembski and Ewert have defined a specification as a short description, or perhaps the shortest description.[5] This is another information measure of how much information we have. Instead of being measured according to the number of possibilities excluded, a specification refers to the information measure of its description. They mean this quite literally in terms of some language and the minimum number of words, like Kolmogorov complexity, needed to describe the artifact in question. They discuss how information measured in this way is somewhat relative to the language used but show that most real languages give similar results. For example, English has about 200,000 words in common usage, and therefore one word in English is about 17.6 bits, which they round up to 20 bits.[6] They give an example of how to apply this to a protein function like “binds ATP” whose two words would constitute a 40-bit specification.[7] They give an equation for how to relate complexity metrics with specification metrics to give a numerical result for specified complexity. A large result means a large amount of specified complexity. In words, a low probability (which is a high complexity) combined with a short description constitutes specified complexity.

Dembski has always argued that specified complexity is the property of objects we intuitively recognize as the artifact of intelligent design.[8] Specified complexity represents the feature we see in letters drawn in the sand, or Mount Rushmore. These arrangements are highly improbable, but of course virtually any arrangement of grains of sand on a beach or rock faces is highly improbable. It is not just improbability but improbability paired with a specification that indicates design. Other examples, say a vortex swirling in a liquid or a crystal growing into a precise geometric shape, have short descriptions, i.e. specifications, but with high probability. The high probability here is due to laws restricting possibilities so that the occurrence of the vortex or crystal is a highly probable result. So even though it seems to have a pattern that we might identify as a specification, a design inference is not triggered because the event is not highly improbable. But if we see both, as in Mount Rushmore or a message drawn in the sand, we infer design. Specified complexity is a rigorous way to show this feature of designed objects.

The famed fine-tuning argument is a special case of specified complexity. Two things are required: a very low probability and a specification. In the fine-tuning argument, the low probabilities of the various natural constants are combined with the specification of a natural world that supports complex life. Luke Barnes has shown how the range of possible values compared to the range of values which are life permitting can be calculated.[9] The improbability of all these constants fitting into those ranges, especially in combination, is more than astronomical. “Universe supporting complex life” constitutes the short description required for a specification. Extremely high complexity (low probability) corresponds to a short description (specification), and we are justified in inferring design.

The same fine-tuning argument can also be applied to biology.[10] In fact, complexity calculations, as already shown above, are much easier in the context of DNA and the genetic code. They are even more straightforward in the case of protein sequences. In the case of specifications, proteins are also quite straightforward, as most of them already have short descriptions in the existing scientific literature that usually are a succinct description of their function. Naturally occurring proteins almost all have high specified complexity and result in a design inference according to this formulation of the information argument. There are some exceptions which generally prove the rule due to either their short sequence length, low specificity of function, or both, such as the ice-fish anti-freeze proteins which are best explained as the result of random mutations.[11]

Various objections have been raised to this general argument, but they usually fall into two categories. They both claim that Dembski’s theory is wrong and that natural, that is, non-designed processes can generate complex specified information. One way of trying to show this is through the use of computer models called “evolutionary” or “genetic” algorithms. Programs like Ev and Avida were claimed to have created exactly this sort of complex specified information through evolution-like processes programmed into the algorithm involving random variations acted on by a simulation of natural selection. Dembski, Robert Marks II, and Winston Ewert over several years published a series of papers showing how these programs all cheated by including what they called “active information” into the program ensuring that it would succeed.[12] Active information is information added by the programmers or designers of the program that made it look like it was being generated by these simulated evolutionary computations. In this same research, they proposed the Law of Conservation of Information.[13] Essentially, this says that any information output of such an algorithm must be equal to or lesser than the information input. Dembski and Ewert are working on a forthcoming book on all of this research.[14]

Complex Specified Information in Biology  

Another class of objections appeal to work in biochemistry rather than computer simulations that shows evolutionary or biochemically simulated evolutionary processes creating complex specified information. By the early 2000s, most of these types of objections were not much more than hand-waving or anecdotal. But then a biochemist named Douglas Axe published a series of papers culminating in hard evidence that the number of stable, functional protein folds is extremely rare in the protein sequence space. This is similar to Luke Barnes showing how rare the values for the fine-tuned constants are in the possible range of values. Both show that the actual values and sequences we have are extremely rare, thus exhibiting extremely high complexity. Axe was even kicked out of his lab just prior to completing his research for apparently ideological reasons.[15] He was able to publish his final paper showing that the rarity of a stable, functional folding domain for a protein called TEM-1, a commonly used beta-lactamase enzyme, was between 10^-64 and 10^-77.[16] This immediately suggested that functional protein folding domains are designed by an intelligence. Axe also calculated that any stable, functional protein fold of sequence length 153, the same length as the folding domain he studied, would have a probability in the sequence space of 10^-74.

Several objections were raised over the years since 2004. Some had technical objections, but none have been published. Axe has publicly stated that one was submitted for publication which he reviewed and subsequently was not published.[17] Other objections claimed that another way of doing the experiment gives a different result, namely a much larger probability for stable functional protein folding domains on the order of 10^-11 to 10^-12. Dembski and Ewert mentioned such examples and argued that the function in question is common enough that design is not indicated in such cases.[18] But a more direct answer to this objection is that these studies were in vitro, not in vivo. Axe’s study was done inside a real living organism, and these other studies were done in test tubes. The difference is that in a test tube there are no other biological molecules around to interfere or be interfered with. A protein in a real biological context doesn’t just have to perform its function. It must also avoid performing other functions; that is, it must avoid interactions with other biological molecules that would interfere with their functions or have its own function interfered with. This likely means that the constraints on the proper functioning of proteins in a real biological context are much higher than in a test tube. In other words, it doesn’t matter if a protein can bind ATP in a test tube if it would bind nearly everything inside a real organism, thus killing it. That is why real, naturally occurring proteins require such high specificity. It is not only the function that must happen; it must also exclude all other functions. This objection fails to recognize a key feature of information: excluded possibilities are much more numerous and more important in information measures than the possibility that actually obtains. These in vitro studies generate a large number of random sequences from scratch and test for bare function. Most of them are not naturally occurring and were not tested in a real organism.

In 2006, Dan Tawfik’s lab published a study[19] which generalized and confirmed Axe’s number of 10^-74. Tawfik studied ten proteins of different types and found that two out of every three random mutations reduced the thermodynamic stability of their folds by 1 kcal/mol or more. Since Axe’s version of TEM-1 was barely stable, this means that in this context any such mutation would likely have destabilized the fold. Since two in three mutations destroy the fold and therefore the function resulting from the fold, it is a simple matter to calculate the number of sequences which would likely work versus not. The number of amino acids that would work at each position is 1/3, and if the sequence is 153 amino acids long, simply take the number of characters that work to the power of the number of positions in the sequence, just as we did for DNA above: (1/3)^153 = 10^-73.[20] This is within a single order of magnitude of Axe’s calculation, confirming Axe’s result.

Intelligence is the Best Explanation for Complex Specified Information   

But why does specified complexity indicate intelligent design? This is a more philosophical question that was taken up by Stephen Meyer.[21] Meyer takes Dembski’s and Axe’s work, along with others, and puts the finishing touches on it. Meyer studied the philosophy of science of Charles Darwin and one of his major influences, geologist Charles Lyell.[22] Meyer notes that Lyell argued that historical science, the science of understanding natural history and origins,[23]  should utilize causes now in operation to explain past events. Meyer simply asked the question, “What is the cause now in operation that explains complex, specified information?” He argues this cause is intelligence, and so we can infer intelligent cause for complex, specified information by the same rules that Lyell, Darwin, and the historical sciences generally use.

Scientific inferences today are understood as inferences to the best explanation, which is technically called an abductive argument.[24] Abductive inferences, or inferences to the best explanation, cannot rule out all other possible explanations. All they can do is compare competing explanations to see which one is better. In order to do this, scientists weigh competing hypotheses and try to test them against each other to see which one survives the tests. Meyer argues that intelligent design is the best explanation for information in precisely this way and therefore follows the rules of scientific inference and succeeds as the best explanation for complex, specified information.[25]

The argument from information is thus well supported both scientifically and philosophically in two major examples: the physical constants according to fundamental physics and the information in DNA, both required for life to exist. This argument persuaded the famous atheist philosopher Antony Flew to admit that God exists[26] and has been mentioned by many prominent atheists as being the most compelling argument for theism. The current argument from information is different and stronger than past versions of the design argument. It has identified the rigorous logical, mathematical, and philosophical basis of the intuitive design inference we all use every day. This argument has been applied to artifacts in nature which could not have been designed by human beings, some of which could only have been created by a supernatural intelligence simply because no natural intelligences could have been around at the time.  It is one of if not the best current argument for the existence of God.

References:

[1] [Editor’s note: Teleology refers to “goal-directedness”, especially in terms of “design” and “intelligent design.” If an item shows signs of teleology that means it looks to be designed by some intelligence to serve a purpose. If teleology were to be found in natural objects like animals, plants, rocks, and rivers, then that would suggest an intelligent designer of those things. If it’s found crafted objects like buildings and books, that suggests man-made design to serve whatever purpose the craftsman intended. The “Teleological Argument for God” is also called the “Design Argument for God.”]

[2] William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 154.

[3] William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 135.

[4] William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot be Purchased Without Intelligence (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), 59-62.

[5] William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities, 2nd ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2023), 151-152.

[6] Ibid., 348.

[7] Ibid., 427.

[8] William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 81-82.

[9] Luke Barnes, “A Reasonable Little Question: A Formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument,” Ergo 6, no. 42 (2019-2020). https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0006.042/–reasonable-little-question-a-formulation-of-the-fine-tuning?rgn=main;view=fulltext (accessed December 10, 2024).

[10] Steinar Thorvaldsen and Ola Hossjer, “Using statistical methods to model the fine-tuning of molecular machines and systems,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 501, (Septermber 2020). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022519320302071 (accessed December 10, 2024).

[11] Abirami Baskaran et al. “Anti freeze proteins (Afp): Properties, sources and applications – A review,” International Journal of Biological Molecules 189 (31 October, 2021): 292-305.

[12] William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics 14, no. 5 (2010): 475-486.https://evoinfo.org/publications/search-for-a-search.html (accessed December 10, 2024).

[13] William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information,” in The Nature of Nature, ed. Bruce Gordon and William Dembski (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2009), 381.

[14] William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities, 2nd ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2023), 472.

[15] Douglas Axe, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (n.p.: HarperOne, 2016), 49-51.

[16] Douglas D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology 341, no. 5 (August 2004): 1295-1315. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022283604007624 (accessed December 10, 2024).

[17] Sean McDowell. The Debate over Evolution and Intelligent Design (w/ Doug Axe). https://youtu.be/YGggxHBqPRc?t=1557 (accessed July 3, 2025)

[18] William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities, 2nd ed. (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2023), 427.

[19] Shimon Bershtein et al. “Robustness – epistasis link shapes the fitness landscape of a randomly drifting protein,” Nature 444 (2006): 929-932.

[20] Brian Miller, “A Dentist in the Sahara: Doug Axe on the Rarity of Proteins Is Decisively Confirmed,” Evolutionnews.org, February 18, 2019. https://evolutionnews.org/2019/02/a-dentist-in-the-sahara-doug-axe-on-the-rarity-of-proteins-is-decisively-confirmed/ (accessed December 10, 2024).

[21] Stephen C. Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117, no. 2 (2004): 213-239. https://www.discovery.org/a/2177/ (accessed December 10, 2024).

[22] Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (n.p.: HarperOne, 2009), 160.

[23] Ibid., 409.

[24] Ibid., 152-154.

[25] Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (n.p.: HarperOne, 2009), 347-348.

[26] Antony Flew, How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (n.p.: HarperOne, 2008)

Recommended Resources: 

Why Science Needs God by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Science Doesn’t Say Anything, Scientists Do by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Does Science Disprove God? by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

 

Ben Kissling grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and currently resides in Dallas, Texas. He has a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Nebraska and is currently enrolled in the M.A. in Science and Religion program at Biola University. He has worked in many different laboratories, as a youth pastor and a high school teacher, but origins science is his lifelong passion.
[Source: https://creation.com/en/people/ben-kissling]

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/46QRQlU

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On Undesigned Coincidences: A Reply to Dan McClellan

Dan McClellan, a Biblical scholar with a specialty in the Hebrew Bible, and popular social media content creator, recently responded to a clip of my friend and colleague, Wesley Huff, on undesigned coincidences as a marker of historicity in the gospel accounts. Wesley Huff subsequently posted a statement on his community page on YouTube, linking to my previous response to John Nelson, which deals with many of the same concerns raised by McClellan. This prompted McClellan to publish another video offering a rebuttal to my engagement with Nelson’s (and by extension his) concerns in my essay. I do not know why the critics of undesigned coincidences always seem to want to engage with those examples pertaining to the feeding of the five thousand. Literally every critical treatment of the topic thus far has focused on those. There are plenty of other undesigned coincidences, both between the gospels and between Acts and Paul’s letters, many of which are stronger than those examples. Nevertheless, here I offer a reply to McClellan’s video engagement with my article.

Some General Observations 

Before turning to the specific points raised by McClellan, I will offer some general observations. One of the most powerful tools in persuasion, irrespective of the credibility of what you are saying, is confidence. Assertions delivered with certainty and rhetorical force can often sound very convincing to an untrained audience. For the uninitiated, confidence is very easily, and subconsciously, taken as a proxy for competence. If something is stated with enough conviction and firmness, it can feel well supported, even if someone specializing in the relevant subject-matter would immediately detect major problems with the arguments being delivered. Such is the case with Dan McClellan. To the trained ear, McClellan’s content reveals him to be out of his depth when dealing with the field of New Testament studies. Nonetheless, he delivers his comments with such assertiveness that his audience often assumes that he knows what he is talking about. They thus do not carefully examine McClellan’s statements through a critical lens. Put less kindly, McClellan gets a free pass to talk nonsense.

One major red flag that would have been immediately evident to anyone acquainted with the field is McClellan’s insinuation that Michael Alter’s book, The Hypothesis of Undesigned Coincidences (2024) is a serious scholarly engagement with the topic. Anyone familiar with Michael Alter’s previous work up to and including this volume knows that he is more of a crank than a scholar. To his credit, McClellan has since corrected his prior claim that Alter’s book was a peer-reviewed publication. But nonetheless his recommendation of Michael Alter as being a scholar worthy of serious engagement reveals that he is out of his depth on the field of New Testament. Another serious error was his statement that John Nelson is a “Christian apologist” (he has since corrected himself on this as well).

McClellan is also hypocritical. He accuses Wesley Huff of being condescending towards him and insinuating that he is incompetent while he does the exact same thing towards me. Moreover, he shows great concern for who has what academic credentials when it comes to his critics such as myself or Lydia McGrew, but then appeals to someone like Michael Alter, who has none of the credentials McClellan demands of his critics. Indeed, before his retirement, Alter was a public school teacher in Miami, Florida, where he taught social studies, biology, and physical education. Now, I am not someone who cares what degrees someone has or does not have. I only bring this up to underscore the hypocrisy of McClellan’s approach.

McClellan also attacks my scientific reputation, making a sweeping claim that my “approach to biology is profoundly misguided.” McClellan gives no specific examples of what he has in mind, nor does he even refer to specific scientists who have engaged with my work. This is highly disingenuous as, without specifics, there is no way for me to defend myself against this attack on my professional reputation. Moreover, he makes a grossly false claim about me when he asserts that I have “explicitly in debates said, ‘Yes, I’m presupposing this, that, and the other,’” and that I do “not seem concerned for the dogmas that [I am] just arbitrarily asserting.” I literally have no idea what he is referring to here. I am well established as a card-carrying evidentialist, who disdains presuppositionalism. I challenge McClellan to cite one example of those debates in which I allegedly say, “I’m presupposing this, that, and the other.” Of course, he won’t since no such examples exist. I seek to establish my conclusions with facts and evidence. McClellan may disagree with my evaluation of the data, and that is fine. But let us not misconstrue what my positions and arguments are.

Finally, I will note that I agree with McClellan, over Huff, that there is presently no detailed treatment in the academic literature (by which I mean the peer-reviewed literature) of the subject of undesigned coincidences, either favorable to or critical of, the argument. This I regard as a deficit of the scholarly literature rather than of the argument itself, but nonetheless that is the current state of play. Perhaps I or others will correct this in the future. There are, however, scholars who utilize the argument in their academic publications, though it is incidental to their own work. Luuk van de Weghe is a recent example.[i] Van de Weghe’s book, Living Footnotes in the Gospel of Luke even contains a chapter in which he documents for comparison instances of undesigned coincidences between eyewitness accounts of Anne Frank’s imprisonment in Auschwitz (see especially pages 166-167).

Does Lydia McGrew Set Aside the Apparatus of Critical Scholarship?       

Now, let us turn to the actual substance of McClellan’s critique. McClellan makes a false claim regarding Lydia McGrew’s book, Hidden in Plain View (2017). McClellan claims that McGrew explicitly says that she has no interest in engaging with critical scholarship. Here is the relevant quote in context:

I am suggesting that the reader consider the question of the historical reliability of the Gospels and Acts from a new angle. Instead of getting involved in the specifics of alleged contradictions and proposed resolutions to them (not a bad enterprise in itself), instead of tackling these books from the perspectives of source and redaction criticism with the assumption that they represent multiple redactors, layers, and “developments,” instead of thinking and speaking of Jesus or Paul as if they are literary characters in fictional works, I suggest that the reader take seriously the hypothesis that they are what they appear to be prima facie and what they were traditionally taken by Christians to be—historical memoirs of real people and events, written by those in a position to know about these people and events, either direct eyewitnesses or friends and associates of eyewitnesses, who were trying to be truthful. I suggest that we take this hypothesis for a test drive while setting aside the apparatus of critical scholarship. Suppose that these were such memoirs. What might they look like? How does the occurrence of coincidences that appear casual and unrehearsed between and among these documents support that hypothesis? When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I suggest that we expand our toolkit.

When read in context, McGrew’s intended meaning becomes apparent. She does not want to get distracted from the book’s thesis by being sidetracked onto discussions of such things as alleged contradictions in the gospels and proposed harmonizations (she covers this in fact in her more recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices). Similarly, she doesn’t want to devote a portion of her book to having to deal with various scholarly perspectives on source and redaction criticism. Rather, McGrew chooses in her book to unabashedly appeal directly to the common-sensical reader by looking at the accounts in the gospels and Acts, and asking the sorts of questions given at the end of the paragraph quoted above. In her book, McGrew was trying to appeal to a particular audience–one capable of seeing the direct appeal of undesigned coincidences. For that purpose, and for the length of the book, taking a significant detour to discuss all of those theories (which are addressed in plenty of other books) would bog down the argument. Hidden in Plain View is also intended to be a popular-level book, not an academic treatment.

One may add, however, that the book does show awareness of theories such as the two-source-hypothesis, etc, and has various comments along the way that show how undesigned coincidences open up new avenues of approaching the synoptic puzzle. Thus, the book is by no means uninformed about contemporary scholarship. McGrew has also discussed these subjects in more detail elsewhere.

Elisha’s Feeding of the One Hundred  

McClellan sees a parallel between Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and Elisha’s feeding of the one hundred in 2 Kings 4:42-44. I agree that there are striking parallels between the two accounts. In my previous essay, I pointed out that the mere fact that there exists parallel features of the accounts does not imply that Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand is fictitious, particularly since, as I have argued, there are strong reasons to think the accounts are historical. A plausible alternative interpretation of the parallel features is that Jesus himself purposed to present himself as a prophet greater than Elisha, and therefore intentionally performed a similar, though much greater, miracle, in the anticipation that those observing the sign would notice the parallels and recognize Jesus as being greater than the prophets of old. The evangelists then highlighted parallel features in order to draw the attention of their readers to them.

McClellan dismisses this scenario as “a pretty silly argument” that would “get you laughed out of an academic conference.” McClellan provides no explanation as to why he considers this explanation to be so implausible. He merely asserts it without argument. I asked a couple of other scholars if they could understand McClellan’s dismissal of this approach, and neither were able to.

Crowds at Passover   

McClellan maintains that the “coming and going” crowds in Mark 6:31 were present because of Jesus, rather than for some broader reason. I do not dispute that the crowds were likely interacting with Jesus; indeed, this best explains why Jesus and his disciples had no leisure even to eat, a point that coheres well with the similar language about Jesus and the disciples not being able to eat in Mark 3:20, as McClellan rightly observes. Nevertheless, as I argued in my previous essay, it does not seem to me the most probable reading that the crowds were present primarily because of Jesus. If that were the case, Jesus’ suggestion that they withdraw to a deserted place makes little sense.

Any adequate account must explain both (1) the statement that people “recognized” (ἐπέγνωσαν) Jesus (Mk 6:33) and (2) the persistent problem of crowds “coming and going,” such that Jesus and his disciples lacked even basic leisure (Mk 6:31). McClellan is correct to infer that Jesus was interacting with the crowds, but this does not entail that Jesus was the sole—or even primary—reason for their presence. Peter J. Williams notes, “In Mark, the fact that Jesus moved locations indicates that it was not a mere increase in traffic for a few hours, but a more prolonged increase in movement of people such as normally occurred only at the time of festivals.”[ii]

It seems most likely to me that this scene took place in Capernaum during a period when the town experienced an influx of transient crowds. At the same time, local residents could readily direct visitors to the location where Jesus was known to stay, resulting in sustained interaction with him. On this reading, the crowd pressure arises from the convergence of increased regional movement and Jesus’ recognizable presence in a known location. This accounts for why Jesus was engaged by the crowds and makes sense of the decision to withdraw by boat rather than simply retreat indoors.

The Green Grass

In my previous essay, I argued that the claim that Mark, in referring to the green grass (Mk 6:39), intended an allusion to Psalm 23, is bad historical methodology, since one could literally identify a symbolic reason for any alternative detail (I gave some proposals for symbolic interpretations of the counterfactual where Mark had stated that the people sat down on the brown grass).

McClellan responds,

Now I think a good reason to draw this conclusion is because otherwise the detail plays no role in the narrative and plays no role in a literary sense. Why mention that the grass was green? John doesn’t even mention the grass is green. Why would Mark mention it’s green if there’s not some kind of connection being intentionally made? You don’t just say, ‘Oh, there’s green grass,’ when you’re writing down a narrative, even if the grass was green. It’s a pointless thing to highlight, unless you’re trying to create a literary allusion to something, which the overwhelming majority of scholars agree is what is going on when it comes to Mark’s reference to the green grass.

 

McClellan’s objection presumes that people telling the truth never mention irrelevant or unnecessary details, whereas in point of fact, they do this all the time – including elsewhere throughout the gospels and Acts. Furthermore, as noted in my previous article, giving an explanation for one side of the undesigned coincidence does not explain how it fits together, in an apparently incidental manner, with the other source. Thus, McClellan’s connection of the allusion to the green grass in Mark 6:39 does not account for its dovetailing with the reference to the Passover being at hand in John 6:4.

McClellan responds to this latter point by stating,

So it doesn’t fit together with John. This is begging the question. You have to already presuppose that the argument is true for Mark to fit together so well with John…If you’re taking John’s reference to this being near Passover as fitting well with Mark, you’re already presupposing that your argument is correct because nothing in Mark indicates that this is near Passover.

McClellan merely asserts this without providing any explanation as to why he does not think the allusion to the green grass in Mark 6:39 fits well with the Passover being at hand, as indicated by John 6:4. Moreover, his claim that the argument begs the question suggests to me that he does not understand the principle of inference to the best explanation. McClellan’s objection is akin to saying that deer tracks in the woods do not fit with deer unless you’re begging the question and already assuming there are deer in the woods. The whole point of the undesigned coincidence is that Mark does not explicitly indicate that the Passover was at hand. But his casual mention that the grass was green fits well with the time of year on which the Passover fell (around March time), a detail supplied uniquely by John. This is best explained on the hypothesis of the mutual historicity of John’s and Mark’s accounts.

McClellan also makes another ill-founded claim. He asserts, “the synoptic gospels only have Jesus running a roughly one-year ministry that culminates in the Passover. Only John has a multiple year ministry where you can have a Passover in the middle of the story.” While the synoptics only explicitly mention a single Passover, it is a very weak argument from silence to say that the Synoptics thereby represent Jesus as having had a single year ministry. Moreover, as James Hastings et al. explain,

Indications of a ministry of more than a single year are found in the Synoptics; e.g. Mk 2:23 (harvest) 6:39 (spring; ‘green grass’), for the length of the journeys of 6:56–10:32 shows that the spring of 6:39 could not be that of the Crucifixion. Thus Mk. implies at least a two years’ ministry. In Lk. also we see traces of three periods in the ministry: (1) 3:21–4:30, preaching in the wilderness of Judæa and in Nazareth and Galilee, briefly recorded; (2) 4:31–9:50, preaching in Galilee and the North, related at length; (3) 9:51-end, preaching in Central Palestine as far as Jerusalem. Ramsay (op. cit. p. 212) takes each of these periods as corresponding roughly to one year.[iii]

Thus, contra McClellan, even from the synoptic gospels there is reason to think that Jesus’ ministry spanned more than one year.

Contradictions?

The Location  
McClellan asserts that Mark contradicts Luke on the location of the event, since, while Luke indicates that the feeding of the five thousand took place in Bethsaida, Mark says that, following the event, Jesus directed the disciples to head in a boat in the direction of Bethsaida. McClellan, however, fails to inform his viewers of my detailed discussion of this in my article, to which he is supposed to be responding. Since McClellan failed to engage (or even take note of) my previous discussion, I will repeat here what I wrote there. Readers should refer to the map below when reading the discussion that follows.

There is, in fact, evidence that is internal to Mark’s gospel itself that suggest the feeding of the five thousand took place on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee (as opposed to the northwest side). Mark indicates that the disciples did not even have leisure to eat before the feeding, because there were “many coming and going” (Mark 6:31), and that they got into the boat to get away from the crowds. This fits well with the indication in John 6:4 that the feast of Passover was at hand (in particular, if Jesus and the disciples were in or near Capernaum, which was a major center). If they departed Capernaum by boat, it is not implausible that they ended up in the vicinity of Bethsaida (going along the top of the Sea of Galilee), which is what is indicated by Luke 9:10. Mark, in fact, explicitly says that they landed at Gennesaret when they had crossed over (Mark 6:53)! Gennesaret is geographically very close to Capernaum. Thus, this actually, far from contradicting, confirms the idea of which direction they were going. If they were really crossing over “to Bethsaida” as if to land at or near Bethsaida, they could not have landed at Gennesaret (see the map above)! Moreover, as Cyndi Parker observes, “Matthew and Mark both state that the disciples struggled to reach their destination because the wind was against them (Matt 14:24; Mark 6:48). Since weather systems typically come from the Mediterranean Sea, the fierce wind causing the terrifying storm was likely coming from the west. This small detail suggests the disciples were traveling from the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee to the western side, further supporting the suggestion that the miracle took place in Gaulanitis. . .” (Bethsaida is in the province of Gaulanitis, east of the Jordan River).[iv]

In view of these considerations, the language of Mark 6:45 must be interpreted within the context of these indicators. I discussed this in my previous article, but McClellan fails to engage with these observations at all.

The Shore or a Mountain?     
McClellan asserts that, whereas in John, Jesus sees the crowd when he has gone up onto a mountain (Jn 6:3-5), whereas in Mark, Jesus sees the crowd upon going ashore (Mk 6:34) and in fact Mark makes no reference to Jesus and the disciples going up a mountain, though Mark does allude to Jesus later going up the mountain to pray after having sent the disciples away in a boat (Mk 6:46). Once again, McClellan fails to engage with my discussion of this in the essay to which he is supposed to be responding. As I pointed out previously, the three synoptic gospels indicate that Jesus interacted with the crowd prior to the feeding miracle. Indeed, Mark, speaking of the crowd that had followed Jesus, says that Jesus “had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things” (Mk 6:34). In Matthew’s account, we read that “he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Mt 14:14). In Luke, it mentions both that Jesus “spoke to them of the kingdom of God” and that he “cured those who had need of healing” (Lk 9:11). Thus, we are to picture Jesus having been with the crowd for some time prior to the feeding event. In the synoptics, we are told that when it was getting late, they discussed where to find food for the crowd of people. John, however, does not mention the earlier part of the day. It seems, then, that the crowds converged on him while He had slipped away with His disciples. John’s emphasis, though, is on the feeding through the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fish. The accounts, therefore, in fact fit together quite well.

Narrative Incongruity?           
McClellan claims that there exists narrative incongruity in the account in Luke, since, though the feeding of the five thousand is set in Bethsaida according to Luke 9:10, the twelve say to Jesus, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in an desolate place.” As I argued in my previous article, the stated location of Bethsaida is very likely being used in a regional sense (in like-manner to how someone might say they live in a major city while technically living in a suburb of that city). This is the most natural way of reading Luke’s account. McClellan responds to this by stating, “We have no evidence for this. This is just an assertion that makes sense of our demand to have them all harmonized.” McClellan however fails to inform his viewers of any of the points I raised in support of the plausibility of this reading. As I noted previously, are we really to envision Luke becoming fatigued and forgetting what he just wrote two verses earlier? This is an extremely uncharitable way of reading Luke.

It must also be borne in mind that we are talking about a crowd of five thousand men, besides women and children (Mt 14:21) here. It is not at all obvious, therefore, that such a crowd, if it were in or nearby the city, would not need to go to the surrounding villages and countryside to find food, particularly given that the day was drawing to a close (Lk 9:12).

Why would Luke change the location?          
In my previous essay, I had noted that the redaction critics never provide any explanation as to why Luke would have intentionally changed the location of the event to Bethsaida. McClellan postulates a frankly bizarre explanation that Matthew invented Jesus’ pronouncement of the woes over Bethsaida (Mt 11:21) on the basis of the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida in Mark’s gospel (Mk 8:22-26). Then Luke deliberately moved the feeding of the five thousand event to Bethsaida on the basis of the woes in Matthew. There is no way to describe this proposal other than preposterous. First, Jesus tells the blind man in Mark 8:26, “Do not even enter the village,” which aligns well with Jesus’ habit of instructing people not to publicize his miracles or his Messianic identity. So, it seems unlikely that this miracle is the basis of Jesus’ pronouncement of the woes over Bethsaida for not believing in spite of the “mighty works” performed there (Mt 11:21). Second, if Matthew invented pronouncement on the basis of this miracle from Bethsaida, why also include the city of Chorazin (which actually is mentioned prior to Bethsaida) in the pronouncement? None of the gospels mention Jesus performing miracles in Chorazin. Third, the reference to Bethsaida in Luke 9:10 is very incidental. Luke does not make an explicit connection between the feeding of the five thousand and the pronouncement of the woes (which are given in Luke 10:13). Luke might also be expected, on this hypothesis, to locate a public miracle in Chorazin in addition to Bethsaida, though he does not do so.

Confusion About Independence

One of the most bizarre claims made by McClellan is that “The stronger your case for independence gets, the less strong your case for historicity gets.” It is difficult to overstate how absurd this statement is. Independent attestation makes an historical event more plausible, not less. In what possible Universe is having more independence damaging to a case for historicity?

McClellan continues,

And like McGrew, McLatchie would like you to believe that contradictions only prove the account is historical because it means they are not colluding. And this is one of the things that I pointed out that nobody seems to be willing to address. Nobody thinks that the gospel authors all sat down in a room together and colluded on hammering out their narratives. They were literarily dependent on other narratives as sources, but they changed them as they pleased in order to serve their own interests and their own rhetorical goals. So they’re all already independent. We know that they are relying to differing degrees on earlier accounts, but that is not collusion, and that is not a lack of independence. So, pointing out that discrepancies prove their independence only serves the critical perspective. It does not mean that therefore everything is historical.

I agree that nobody believes this, nor did I allege that anyone did. So, if there is any straw-manning going on, it is on the part of McClellan. By independence, I mean to say that the evangelists are not wholly dependent upon each other. In other words, they had independent access to the facts. This is evidenced in part by the discrepancies that exist between the accounts. These discrepancies can be quite plausibly harmonized (as discussed previously), but they indicate that the authors are not simply copying, and deriving details from, each other’s account. McClellan wants to say that the evangelists purposefully redacted each other’s work. But these discrepancies concern details about which there is no plausible motive for changing the other account(s). For what motive could there be for Luke to intentionally change the location of the event to Bethsaida? Or for John to change the place where Jesus first saw the crowd when he had gone up a mountain? Or for John to change the apparent sequence in which Jesus went up on a mountain by himself and sent the disciples away in a boat? Other differences in the account that point to factual independence include:

Only John mentions the boy, and that they were barley loaves (Jn 6:9), which fits with the time of year, being near the Passover.

  • Only John mentions that it was Andrew who brought the boy forward (Jn 6:8).
  • Only John mentions the other name of the Sea of Galilee (the Sea of Tiberius), a name that we can confirm from other sources (Jn 6:1).
  • Only John records how far the disciples had rowed when they saw Jesus coming towards him, which is given as an imprecise measurement of twenty-five or thirty stadia, or about three or four miles (Jn 6:19).
  • Matthew and Luke both mention that Jesus healed people (Mt 14:14; Lk 6:11), a detail not supplied by Mark.
  • Only Mark mentions that the disciples landed at Gennesaret (Mk 6:53). This fits with the account in John, which says that they set off for Capernaum (Jn 6:17).

McClellan also appears to be ignorant of how independence and dependence are not binary categories. A source can have obtained some details from another while also having their own access to the facts that is independent of the source on which they are reliant for other details. Generally when critics refer to the synoptic puzzle (or even Johannine familiarity with the synoptic gospels) in order to hand wave away undesigned coincidences between the gospels, they have failed to understand this important nuance.

The Ur-Source Theory           

Towards the end of his response to me, McClellan returns to a point that he had emphasized in his previous video engaging with Wesley Huff. He asserts that,

Even if we do accept these arguments for undesigned coincidences, all it means is that they were relying on a single pre-existing tradition of some kind, whether oral tradition or some kind of written text. That’s all it means. You cannot get from undesigned coincidences to these all happened exactly as the text states without just inserting dogmas and arguing from assertion and just arbitrarily insisting well this is what must have happened.

The argument is normally articulated in terms of the oral tradition that many scholars believe lies behind the gospel accounts (although this in principle could be written sources alternatively). The objection is that undesigned coincidences could be just as well explained by the gospel authors incompletely remembering the oral tradition, or incompletely copying from a common ur-source that contained both parts of the coincidence. However, there is no independent evidence for such an ur-source, either in terms of documentary evidence or written testimony to its existence. It is therefore ad hoc — that is, invoked simply for the purpose of avoiding the most obvious explanation that the gospel documents are grounded in true history. The oral tradition alternative has its own problems (which also applies to the ur-source hypothesis) which I will now discuss.

For one thing, there is no evidence for the type of oral tradition of gospel stories that would be needed to adequately explain most undesigned coincidences. Consider the example relating to the involvement of Philip in the account of the feeding of the five thousand in John 6:5, which is explained by Philip’s hometown being in Bethsaida (John 12:21) and the feeding of the five thousand taking place in Bethsaida (Luke 9:10. It seems very unlikely that Christians, across geographical areas, would have known the hometown of Philip as being in Bethsaida. Indeed, such an assumption would lead us to conclude that virtually any randomly selected adult Christian residing in Pisidian Antioch could have listed the hometowns of Bartholomew, Judas (not Iscariot), and every other member of the twelve. Indeed, on this hypothesis, it appears that one would have to suggest that almost any detailed piece of information contained in the gospels was widely known in the Christian community and widely known extremely early, before the gospels were even written. This seems to me very unlikely.

Michael Bird, in his book The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus, puts it like this:

I regard the evidence surveyed as constituting moderate grounds for identifying a conserving force in the transmission of the Jesus tradition, since the gaps in our knowledge are too vast to assert otherwise. At the end of the day most of what is said about the formation of the Jesus tradition is based on a priori assumptions, circumstantial evidence, inference, hypothesis, analogy, conjecture, and sheer guesswork.[v]

A “conserving force” hardly means that everybody knew what town Philip was from already, long before John mentioned it.

Moreover, Luke himself seems to have regarded Theophilus as gaining information from his gospel. Based upon Luke’s introduction itself, we would infer that Theophilus apparently did not already know all of the things found in Luke’s Gospel. Luke wrote it to give him additional information. This also seems to be implied by John 20:30-31.

There are also many undesigned coincidences involving multiple different incidents. An example of this is Luke’s listing of the women who followed Jesus from Galilee, including Chuza the wife of Herod’s household manager (Luke 8:1-3) explaining Matthew’s report of Herod speaking to his servants about Jesus, presumably in the privacy of his own palace, in Matthew 14:1-2. On the ur-source hypothesis, the ur-source would presumably have to include both stories, yet oral stories would typically be stories of a given pericope. If there were multiple circulating traditions containing between them both of the relevant stories, then the undesigned coincidence would still exist between the multiple circulating traditions, and the problem the hypothesis sought to address still remains.

The ur-source hypothesis also fails to explain the coincidence involving John’s mention of Jesus’ approach into Bethany happening six days before Passover, a detail particular to John’s gospel (for the details see my essay here). Notice that Mark 11 telescopes the account such that it is masked that Jesus in fact arrived in Bethany the day before the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and only the morning after sent his disciples to fetch the colt. The passages relevant to the coincidence also span a few chapters in Mark (from Mark 11:1 to 14:1). Furthermore, the setting of the Olivet discourse in Mark 13 in the evening is not explicitly stated, but may be inferred from the fact that the mount of olives is midway between Jerusalem (where Jesus had been all day) and Bethany (where Jesus’ accommodation was for the night). Furthermore, there is a minor discrepancy between John and Mark concerning whether the anointing at Bethany took place before (Jn 12:1-8) or after (Mk 14:3-9) the triumphal entry. I believe this is most plausibly a Markan sandwich, a technique used frequently in Mark where one story is interrupted by another and then resumed. But the fact that it appears, at least on first blush, to be a discrepancy between Mark and John is yet further evidence that the narratives are factually independent of one another, nor are they both drawing from a common underlying ur-source. In view of all of the above considerations, the view that this coincidence is explicable by some sort of ur-source theory seems wildly implausible.

I have only given here a few examples in order to illustrate the deficiencies of the ur-source theory as an explanation of undesigned coincidences between the gospels. But similar shortcomings apply across the board.

Of course, such theories are even more wildly implausible when it comes to accounting for undesigned coincidences between Acts and the epistles of Paul. Lydia McGrew has herself addressed the ur-source explanation here and here.

Conclusion

As with previous critics of the argument from undesigned coincidences, Dan McClellan’s engagement ultimately has the effect of once again underscoring the argument’s robustness rather than undermining it. In my opinion, it would be more productive for the purpose of moving the conversation forward if critics were to turn their attention to other instances of undesigned coincidences, especially those between Acts and Paul’s epistles, rather than repeatedly revisiting the feeding of the five thousand, a case that has by now been discussed quite exhaustively.

References:

[i] Luuk van de Weghe, Living Footnotes in the Gospel of Luke: Luke’s Reliance on Eyewitness Sources (Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers), Kindle Edition.

[ii] Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 92.

[iii] James Hastings et al., Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), 134.

[iv] Cyndi Parker, “Crossing to ‘The Other Side’ of the Sea of Galilee,” in Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels, ed. Barry J. Beitzel and Kristopher A. Lyle, Lexham Geographic Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016), 162.

[v] Michael F. Bird, The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 66–67.

Recommended Resources: 

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)

The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

Debate: What Best Explains Reality: Atheism or Theism? by Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, and Mp3 

 

Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4rLhjFU

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What a Straw Man Argument is and What is Not.

[Editor’s Note: in November 2025, at the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in Boston Massachusetts, Tim Stratton and Phil Kallberg presented a coauthored essay, “Is Divine Determinism a Different Gospel?”. You can see it here or listen to here. The provocative essay – critiquing a major brand of historic Christian thought: Calvinism – evoked some controversy. Phil responds here to one of the critiques.]

I’m inspired to write this both for the accusations of “straw manning” that came from Tim’s and my essay at the 2025 EPS, and due to examples that I have seen. While no one accused me of this directly (all the interactions I had with people in relation to the essay were positive, even when they were pushing back), I heard through the grapevine that some people were complaining that Tim and I were straw manning Calvinists and other divine determinists. Additionally, I did see examples of people straw manning Calvinists in response to Tim and my essay. I’m pretty confident that Tim and I didn’t do this, but some other people have. And further “straw manning,” is one of those accusations that gets tossed around pretty liberally these days so this whole thing will be instructive and useful elsewhere. So let me explain.

What is the Straw Man Fallacy?       


The straw man fallacy is when you deliberately misrepresent your opponent’s position to make it easier to argue against. It’s why from time to time you hear internet atheists complain that people believe in the “sky daddy” instead of critiquing the Kalam Cosmological argument. If you want some good non-philosophical examples of this just watch any Democrat and/or Republican talk about the other side. The reason for the name is that it’s obviously easier to attack a man made of straw than it is a real man. Now it’s important to notice what this is not. The straw man fallacy is not when you are ignorant of your opponent’s position and/or just get something wrong. Nor is it when there is a disagreement about what the entailments of that view are, i.e., “I think physicalism and naturalism necessarily lead to an amoral universe.” There are physicalists and naturalists who disagree and argue for a real objective morality. I think they are being inconsistent and will argue as such. They disagree and will argue against me. I’m not “straw manning” them by arguing “this is what follows from your view.” I’m only doing that if I claim that they are moral nihilists. I don’t claim that they are, rather my claim is that they should be moral nihilists or else they are inconsistent.

An Example in Atheism


So, to carry the example further, suppose I’m arguing against an atheist who argues that morality is just an illusion caused by evolutionary adaptation, like the late Micheal Ruse. An atheist who believes in objective morality (they do exist) might want to accuse me of straw manning him as “You claimed atheists don’t believe in morality, but I do.” But this is a misunderstanding of the straw man fallacy. If I’m arguing against Micheal Ruse, and he really did think that (he did), then there is no straw man here. The other atheist is free to disagree with Ruse and then he and I can discuss and argue about what he actually does think, and if a belief in objective morality is a reasonable, plausible, or even a possible outlook on atheism (it is on some variants and not on others). The point here is that if I can cite someone in group B who really does claim X, then it’s not straw manning if I argue against X, even if other people in group B reject X. At that point I should just be happy that those other people in the group have seen the light by rejecting X and they should be happy that they have an ally in arguing against X. At the worst my criticisms just don’t apply to those other people.

Now it is possible (but it’s unlikely) for someone to do the above in a very dishonest way where the error becomes something like straw manning. I could claim that all atheists follow the philosophy of Nietzsche and Marx (I wouldn’t. This is obviously wrong but just go with it for the example). Then I offer critiques of Marx and Nietzsche and claim that I have defeated atheism. An atheist who rejects Marx and Nietzsche would rightly take offense. If I knowingly do this that is straw manning. If I do this out of ignorance (I’m naive enough to think that Marx and Nietzsche are the authority on all things atheism) then that is a problem, but it’s not straw manning. It’s me not knowing what I’m talking about.

An Example from Politics 

Or for a political analogy, I might argue, “You shouldn’t vote for a Democrat as they support trans-surgery for minors and that’s wrong.” It is true that there are Democrats who support this. But not all Democrats do, so if you are one of the Democrats who don’t support such things did I straw man you with that argument? Since I can point to Democrats who do support such things this is not a straw man, but the moment I start claiming that you have that view then it is. It’s still a poor argument as it’s uncareful and doesn’t appreciate the nuance that many Democrats think and support different things, but it’s not a straw man.

And of course, it’s possible for people to make arguments like that in bad faith wherein they attribute minority and/or fringe views of the group to the whole. I suspect if we could ask all the self-described Democrats, “Do you support sex-change operations for 8-year-olds?” the majority of them would say no. So given this, if the above exchange happens, and you tell me, “well I’m a Democrat and I think such things are barbaric” then my response should be something like, “Good I’m glad you are with me on this.” If at that point I insist that since you are a Democrat you must support sex change operations for 8-year-olds, then I am straw manning you (and I’m being an obstinate fool).

So, straw manning is when you deliberately misrepresent someone or something to make it easier to argue against it. It is not when you misrepresent things due to ignorance or a mistake. Nor is it when you have a disagreement about the entailments of the viewpoint. If you make a mistake or speak out of ignorance and are given correction but continue in the initial error, then that becomes straw manning.

What about Calvinism?  

      
So, if you call yourself a Calvinist or some other type of divine determinist and also don’t think that God determines everything then it’s pretty likely that Tim and my criticisms just don’t apply to you. I strongly suspect that if you and I sat down to hash it all out I’d end up claiming that you are, in some way, being inconsistent as it seems to me Calvinism and other variants of divine determinism just naturally lead to the problems that Tim and I point to. But if you reject those problems then I say, “Great!” We agree on that point and I’m happy to have any ally in claiming things like it’s ridiculous to believe that God demonstrates love for people by condemning them to hell (for example). If you and I disagree about what is entailed by your theological and philosophical system and we are both being honest (or at least trying to be) then no one is straw manning anyone. We just have a philosophical or theological disagreement.

This is an area where I saw the “anti-Calvinists” (for lack of a better name) commit this fallacy. A significant amount of them claimed things like Calvinists don’t believe in the Bible. Now this is plainly not what any Calvinist claims. Further it’s the opposite of what every single one that I’ve read and talked to claims. When I attempted to drill down where those “anti-Calvinists” were getting this from it turned out that they thought that the theological system of Calvinism undermines the Scriptures and our ability to know and trust them (this argument sounds awfully familiar). I agree with that critique, but that’s an implication of the view, not the view itself. Hence those “anti-Calvinists” are straw manning Calvinists as they are attributing to them a view that is flatly denied. Now I think that is denied on pain of a contradiction or inconsistency, but we still need to give Calvinists credit for denying the claim that they don’t believe in the Bible. It’s not reasonable, fair, or good practice to do otherwise.

Naturally this has many implications in a lot of other areas as “straw manning” is one of those phrases that just gets constantly thrown around now. And some people do indeed do this in a malicious way. But I’ve found that much of the time people are simply confusing a disagreement about what logically follows from a view with straw manning. For now, I’ll just avoid getting into specific examples of people who do straw man in a malicious way. It’s not worth the time it would take, as it would probably just alienate people.

So, the point here is if someone is knowingly and maliciously misrepresenting you, that is straw manning. It’s not only a logical fallacy, it’s a moral wrong. But if someone is just ignorant of what you think, genuinely doesn’t understand your view, or disagrees with you on the implications of your view, that’s not straw manning.

Recommended Resources:

How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (MP3 Set), (mp4 Download Set), and (DVD Set) 

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)     

The Great Book of Romans by Dr. Frank Turek (Mp4, Mp3, DVD Complete series, STUDENT & INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, COMPLETE Instructor Set)

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

Phil Kallberg Host of “The Examined Life” podcast is a proud follower of Christ, Phil Kallberg has an MA in Philosophy from Holy Apostles College and Seminary where he wrote a thesis on the Modal Ontological Argument for God’s existence. He greatly enjoys a good story, follows politics far more than is warranted, and makes use of a PlayStation for breaks from all the work of raising children and doing philosophy. Before studying philosophy Phil spent time in the military, worked several jobs in different fields, and thanks to his love of stories got a bachelor’s degree in English. Phil lives in Missouri with his wife, son and daughter. He may be reached for comment at theexaminedlifewithphil@gmail.com


Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4qUzEPe

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5 Ways to Know You Are Judging Rightly

It was the only way I knew how to explain my love of Fixer Upper to my bewildered husband. Since the show aired, I would plunk myself down, yell in frustration (who picks a midcentury modern over a classic Victorian, I mean, come on!?), and bask in the beauty of the big reveal. Yes, I loved the shiplap, but like other Christian fans, what I enjoyed most was having a show featuring a Christian couple who truly loved each other.

What Christian fans weren’t expecting was to watch the designing duo green-light the normalization of homosexuality when they partnered with HBO for the newest reality, Back to the Frontier. The fallout gave fans everywhere a front row seat to a Christian accountability meeting, and they had a lot to say.

“Christians shouldn’t judge (Matthew 7:1)!”

“…All you holier-than-thou scripture-spouting know-it-alls pick and choose your bible verses to quote.” Toni (People Magazine)

“I guess someone forgot Matthew 7:1.”

Yep, Matthew 7:1 became the theological “shiplap” of the comments section–That verse was everywhere! What none of those folks seemed to realize, however, was that they, too, were judging. Which got me thinking, if the anti-judgment crew didn’t realize this, would the new believer? Would our kids? That’s why we are going to evaluate whether Christians can judge, and if so, how we can judge well. Grab your spiritual tool belts, mama’s. It’s demo day (Colossians 2:8).

To Judge Or Not To Judge?        

At first glance, Matthew 7:1 appears to be on the side of the comment critics. Jesus warns, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” If taken at face value, then everyone from Franklin Graham to Matt Walsh owes the Gaines an apology, but that would be a mistake. Why? Because this verse isn’t banning believers from making any judgments; it’s warning against making improper judgments.

At that time, the Jews (particularly the Pharisees) struggled with two huge problems: legalism and double standards. Instead of leading people to God from a place of humility, they set themselves up as God and rejected anyone who didn’t follow their own subjective version of the law (Matthew 12:1-8).

Jesus was setting things straight by saying that man isn’t holy enough to condemn someone eternally, and that accountability can’t be hypocritically applied. His warning in Matthew 7:1 was meant to spark humility by showing that if people were held to their own “measure,” they would quickly be found wanting. Instead, Jesus told them to examine their own hearts, repent, and then “remove the speck” from the eye of their brother (Matthew 7:3-6).

This is the method of righteous judgment. It leaves eternal judgment to God, while allowing believers to correct one another from a position of humility. Righteous judgment is necessary for protecting believers from false teachings and enables the believer to stand firm against the pressure of secular culture (Colossians 2:8 & Ephesians 6:11-18).

So yes, to follow God, a Christian can make and use good judgment. We can help our kids learn how to judge rightly by following five important practices.

#1- Be Theologically Sound

“Teach Me Knowledge And Good Judgment, For I Trust Your Commands.”
Psalms 119:66

To make the right judgments requires an objective standard of right and wrong from which we base morality. Where does that standard come from? Not man, not culture, but God. God’s word is very clear on sex, sin, and marriage, so then why is there so much debate?

There is a very real war being waged over the heart, mind, soul, and body of each one of us. One of Satan’s goals is to distort the word of God into a counterfeit faith to lure people away from Him. This is why, to judge rightly, we need to be immersed in scripture.

For more help on how to read the Bible well, check out our podcast here.

Next, check yourself before you wreck yourself. . . hermeneutically speaking. Does the conclusion you made align with the world of God, His nature, our identity, the reality of sin, and the redemptive work of Christ? If so, well done![1] This will help you avoid a common but preventable error: cherry-picking verses.

Cherry-picking is when a single verse or part of a verse is (often) taken extremely literally to advance a person’s own desires or conclusions without regard to the verse’s context or application. Like when the Pharisees gave themselves a free pass to perform circumcisions on the sabbath but condemned the disciples for “working” when they plucked a handful of grain for a snack (Matthew 12:1-2).

Sorry-not-sorry critics in the comments section! If you posted Matthew 7:1, you’re guilty of making a judgment based on a verse you had cherry-picked.[2]

When a bumper-sticker-worthy verse pops up during your quiet time, guide your children to read the passages (or chapters!) around it to properly discern its meaning. As you read together, point out how the passage reveals God’s goodness, his grace, and his redemption through Christ. From there, you can play “spot the counterfeit” whenever culture tries to offer its own broken version of love, empathy, and acceptance.

Our ROAR method is great for this and perfect for your next movie night!

#2- Be Restoration Focused 

Every righteous judgement needs two important ingredients: love and humility. Love delights in the truth (1 Corinthians 13). Humility is the anchor that roots our judgement in love. Humility reminds the believer of their life before Christ and guides us when we need to hold each other accountable.

How we do this will look different depending on who we are addressing. If addressing a non-believer, our approach will be evangelistic in nature. The goal is to point them toward Christ by seeking to find out what led them to that conclusion, gently address its logical failings, and offer an account of how truth is rooted in Christianity.

If we’re addressing a believer, our approach is gracious accountability. We affirm our mutual call to submit to the truth of God, address the biblical error, encourage the believer to repent, and be restored in righteousness (James 5:20).

To help kids be restoration-minded, role-play how you would address a correction in love by using a character on a show or in their favorite storybook. What tone should you use? If this person were a believer, how would you speak to them? How would our approach change if they are an unbeliever? How would you correct a logical error while pointing to the truth of Christ?

Remember kids, Elijah may be the patron saint of sass [3], but in most cases our tone should be heaped with grace (Colossians 4:6).[3]

#3- Be Seasoned with Salt   

Grace, however, isn’t possible without a little thing called truth. Truth is what enables us to make a right judgement.[4] If our conversions aren’t rooted in truth, then we will lead people into bondage through progressive affirmation. This is exactly what progressives want.

Progressive theology rejects the truth of God in exchange for whatever feels right to each person.[5] It’s part relativism, part spiritualism, mixed into a deadly cocktail of bad theology by a guy who looks like Jesus without any of his redeeming qualities. Pun intended.

The goal is to convince the theologically weak and the empathetic folks into believing that the truth of God is harmful to those who live contrary to his commands. To truly love their neighbor, Christians have to reject the idea of dying to self and accept everyone without question. This, dear reader, is a pack of lies.

Our kids need to know that we are not ‘casting stones’ when we make a right judgment.[6]   The most loving thing we can do is speak the truth. As you practice your ROAR, remind your kids that empathy is a gift from God. To Chip’s point, we can rightly listen and understand a person’s past, but a person’s past doesn’t get to censor the truth of God. In short, a person’s past should alter how we preach God’s word, not if we preach God’s word.

#4- Be Consistent in Word and Deed   

Now for a little heart check, mamas. Before we confront another, we need to ask two questions.

  1. Am I Currently Living In Sin? 
    I’m not meaning the random times where we fall short…like yesterday in traffic. If that were the case, then no one could judge anything! I mean, is there a part of our lives where we are living in habitual sin? If so, we have no business removing the plank from the eye of someone else until the sawdust is removed from our own, Matthew 7:3-6.
  2. Am I Applying A Double Standard?
    This “good for thee but not for me” problem wasn’t unique to the Pharisees. We, too, can develop this spiritual blind spot when we justify our own sin as “less sinful” than that of another. Don’t be fooled, mamas. Our kids notice when we draw the line at shows normalizing LGBTQ lifestyles, only to erase it when we watch the saucy period drama. When we make a judgment, we need to be consistent with that judgment.

Kids need to see what it looks like to live an integrated faith through our example. Model how to sacrifice earthly pleasures for the glory of God. Show them how to love like Christ, ask forgiveness, and stand firm in the faith. Remind them that it’s not possible to fully unplug from everything ungodly, but to the best of our ability, we can direct ourselves and our money toward that which glorifies God.[7]

#5- Be Confident In Christ       

One of my favorite quotes is from Jason Whitlock: “When we are fearful before God, we are fearless before culture.” This fearlessness is the heart of 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

When our identity is rooted in Christ, we are issued a set of spiritual armor and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who gives us wisdom and the boldness to speak truth. The problem is that too many Christians either callously lob truth grenades or cower the moment a cultural criticism comes blazing toward them, Ephesians 6:16.

Who Then Do We Fear?  

Our kids need to know that to be set apart in Christ means that we are set against culture (John 15:18-19) while still seeking people (Matthew 28:19). People will hate us for speaking truth, but we aren’t called to seek man’s approval; we are called to seek righteousness.

To build up your child’s confidence, affirm their identity in Christ. Remind them that the world is going to push back, but we can equip ourselves for the challenge by knowing God’s word and rebuttals to common objections to the faith. Train them to recognize faulty logic, so when someone attacks their character (or their grammar), the baseless insult will bounce right off their shield of faith.

Final Thoughts     

It’s not easy to watch a believer defend their own worldly compromise, but it shouldn’t wreck us. Here’s the truth: if we are still breathing, and they are still breathing, the Holy Spirit is still working. We can encourage them in truth and lift them up in prayer, whether it’s a TV couple or a family member.

Additonal Resources:

Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn
The Theology Handbook by The Daily Grace Co.
10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and answer) about Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin
Mama Bear Apologetics Edited by Hillary Morgan Ferrer

References: 

[1] If not, it could be due to a hermeneutical error. Check out our blog here. For some, however, it could be a worldview issue. See if you add anything to these two statements: I am a _______ Christian.  I am a Christian, but/and I believe__________. Whatever is added into those blank spaces will usually reveal what someone truly worships. For example, someone who calls themselves a “progressive Christian” is a person who doesn’t believe in the gospel but a filtered view that Jesus affirms whoever we say that we are and cheers us on as we live our best life now. It has a guy who looks like Jesus, but it’s a false worldview that, if believed, will lead away from Christ. Secondly, if anything was added after the “I am a Christian” statement, it too is usually what the person actually worships, be it social justice, LGBTQ+, BLM, etc. Please know that each of those movements is a separate worldview that is in direct opposition to God. You cannot be a Christian and follow a pop-cultural religion. Only Christ saves; every other religion falls short.

[2] Fair warning: critics will use the “cherry-picking” accusation when a believer rightly quotes scripture. So long as judgment you have taken the verse within context you aren’t cherry picking, you are quoting. There’s a big difference.

[3] 1 Kings 18 records his snarky mocking of the prophets of Baal. This is a description, not a prescription, folks.

[4] It is also a vital aspect of the nature of God, John 14:6.

[5] See chapter 15 of Mama Bear Apologetics.

[6] You practice your discernment with this comment posted on an article from the NY Post. Matt Lustig said: “…A true religion preaches love and acceptance. Jesus would tell us to love, accept, and be kind to everyone. Reverend Graham and those like him are false Christian’s.”

[7] To put this in perspective, you have supported a company who affirms LGBTQ+ & DEI if you have: electronics by apple or android; ate at Chik-Fil-A; shopped at Home Goods, Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, or Amazon; ate a Kellog’s product; had Starbuks; flew United, Delta, or American; have an American Express card; used Pinterest; and more!

Recommended Resources:

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

 

Amy Davison is a former Air Force veteran turned Mama Bear Apologist. She graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with an MA in Christian Apologetics. She and her husband Michael (also former Air Force) have been married for over 17 years and have 4 kids. Amy is the Mama Bear resident expert on sex and sexuality, and she’s especially hoping to have that listed on her Mama Bear business card.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4rB6jLb

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A Christian at Islamic College: What I Saw Beneath the Surface

I never set out to become a witness to the West’s unraveling. I was just a minister seeking to show God’s love to people. In short, I simply loved Muslims—deeply and sincerely—and believed that the surest way to honor that calling was to study Islam from within its own intellectual world. That conviction led me to Islamic College in London. I was excited that I was going to learn under Muslim scholars. So, I wasn’t seeking conflict or controversy. Far from it. Instead, I was pursuing what I saw as a ministry of respect and understanding.

Shifting Cultural Currents

For several years, the professors supported my work. Classmates welcomed my questions, and I completed an M.A. in Islamic Studies believing I had formed genuine friendships. Yet even then, during my repeated visits to London, something unsettling tugged at me. I sensed cultural currents shifting beneath the surface of the city I had come to love, though I lacked words to describe it.

During those visits, especially when staying in neighborhoods with dense Muslim populations, I often felt as if I was walking through two London’s at once. It would become abundantly clear, as I interacted with countless people, that British culture was not very evident. There was not much assimilation. Another culture has overtaken it, and many British elites were on board.

When I landed in London on October 7, 2023, I expected nothing more than a week full of scholarly conversations with Shia leaders.[1] Instead, I stepped directly into the aftermath of Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians. Suddenly I noticed that, almost below the level of conscious awareness, the city’s emotional atmosphere shifted with a speed that left me disoriented. Suddenly, it wasn’t the same London I thought I knew. Within minutes, I was added to a group text coordinating rallies, and the words “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “resistance” appeared in messages. I was stunned.

Organized Jew-Hatred 

Later, a Muslim friend urged me to meet protest organizers, and was glad to introduce me to them. He insisted I had a role to play, but the invitation scared me to death. What have I got myself into? By the next morning, October 8, I saw with my own eyes, as I was headed to church in an Uber, coordinated demonstrations filled the streets. It felt less like a reaction and more like a mobilization. I realized that there was an organized network of Jew hatred that I didn’t know existed, at least in that magnitude.

“There was an organized network of Jew hatred that I didn’t know existed, at least in that magnitude”

Throughout that week, I took twenty-two Uber rides across the city, and eighteen drivers delivered unsolicited monologues about Israel with nearly identical certainty. I was stunned by the vitriol. What I noticed was a narrative template toward the Jews that I later discovered was in the Quran. I found myself listening quietly, wondering how these views had become so widespread, so quickly, and so synchronized. With each ride, the sense of ideological cohesion grew more visible, and I felt like a visitor in a city I once understood. The London I loved for its diversity now felt dominated by a single, unchallenged narrative.

What I felt most was that the Church there was very weak. And that weakness carried a cost. That disorientation deepened when I watched American and European universities erupt days later with the same slogans and emotional choreography. It was then I realized I was witnessing the expression of a coherent transnational worldview, not a series of isolated events.

“the Church there [in London] was very weak. And that weakness carried a cost.”

Inside Islamic college, the rupture was equally swift and painful. When I publicly defended Israel’s right to exist, relationships that once felt steady collapsed almost instantly. I found this reaction to be profoundly shocking. What I didn’t know was that I was getting an education that I would have never received in a classroom. A professor who had championed my academic work sent a short message cutting all contact. Others followed. There was only one person maintaining communication, who I would still call a friend, who offered a quiet kindness when the others withdrew.

Mainstream Jew-Hate 

More jarring still, I later learned that certain Shia leaders in the broader network wondered aloud if I might be a spy for Israel. I thought me, a spy? You have to be kidding. That suspicion didn’t anger me; it showed how deep the polarization ran. In that moment, I finally saw that anti-Israel sentiment wasn’t fringe. Instead, it was central in ways I’d sensed but never admitted.

After the initial shock, I turned to research in search of clarity, and what I found reframed my entire experience. I discovered through my Media investigations, that there were concerns raised about possible connections between the Islamic College and Al-Mustafa International University, an institution controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader and described by some analysts as a “foothold” for exporting revolutionary ideology.[2] Some pro-regime Iranian outlets even called the College Al-Mustafa’s UK “branch,” though the College strongly denies any link.[3]

Reports also documented troubling public statements by staff. For example, one lecturer compared Israel to Nazi Germany, while another described Anders Breivik as an “ultra-Zionist.” A former principal appeared in footage encouraging chants for Hezbollah, a group now banned in the UK. Can you imagine Hezbollah? As I read, a cold clarity settled over me—these were not scattered controversies but pieces of a coherent pattern.

More investigation yielded that processes had been triggered by UK regulatory bodies far before my own personal breaking point. Middlesex University, the higher education body that validated the College’s degrees, withdrew its partnership with the organization after damning accusations were leveled on national news channels.[4] The Office for Students stated that it was reviewing the situation.

Reports also detailed how the Islamic Centre of England, which was described as having close connections to individuals at the College, held a vigil where IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani was praised, resulting in a Charity Commission warning.[5] The group of students from the college was reported to have visited the home of Ayatollah Khomeini on their trip to Iran in 2016.[6] It became clearer that the philosophy I was being confronted with was institutional.

Input from external perspectives contextualized the anecdotal evidence I was presented with about Al-Mustafa. Analysts such as Kasra Aarabi describe Al-Mustafa University as the “heart of Iran’s international ideological messaging,” from where the regime seeks to grow its reach abroad through highly-supervised networks of scholars.[7] This is an idea that many progressives turn their heads in denial. These studies say the university claims affiliated centers in dozens of countries, including some reported to be operating in the UK.

Pro-regime Farsi outlets have also suggested that certain leaders at the London college were connected to Al-Mustafa, though the College denies any formal ties. These were not antagonistic voices. They were pro-Iranian regime. Still, the mix of rhetoric, leadership backgrounds, and institutional relationships suggested a shared ideological direction rather than coincidence. Only then did I understand that the reflexes I saw in London after October 7 were not improvised. They were cultivated over time.

Asymmetric Integration  

All this led me to start seeing things through a particular framework that made sense of both my experience and the wider crisis in the West: Asymmetric Integration. The West assumes that integration is symmetrical – that newcomers to the open society will enter with a mindset of adopting civic norms and contributing in a pluralistic, multi-valued context. But that assumption breaks down when a new mindset sees openness not as a value to be mutually held, but a thing to be used.

Asymmetric Integration happens when a liberal society welcomes newcomers, which is great. But when it allows certain ideological networks to quietly pull that society into their own worldview, this is problematic. That’s what I saw, writ large. The result isn’t multiculturalism but one-way permeability. The West values rights and freedoms; the ideological ecosystem values faith and internal cohesion. One system is permeable; the other is rigid. That asymmetry constitutes a vulnerability the West doesn’t yet comprehend.

“[With] asymmetric Integration . . . the result isn’t multiculturalism but one-way permeability.”

Beyond culture, the asymmetry is civilizational: Liberal societies assume identities can coexist without hierarchy; many ideological systems born abroad assume truth rests on hierarchy and authority. It’s a deep conflict. Take the interview Der Spiegel conducted with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. Putin asked, “Can you imagine the Russian Federation negotiating with some party inside the European Union?” And yet that’s conventional practice in Europe, which doesn’t pretend all its constituent powers have identical identities and interests.

Liberalism presumes debate and dissent; these networks presume cohesion and loyalty. Liberalism believes diversity dilutes the strength of beliefs; these networks believe beliefs should remain pure. And because liberal democracies assume good faith, they have difficulty recognizing when a different worldview does not. Thus, the West is not just failing to integrate certain communities, it is being integrated into ideological architectures it did not choose, and doesn’t understand. Suddenly the transformations I felt in London, the rapid mobilization of protests, and the rupture in my academic community all made painful sense.

“Because liberal democracies assume good faith [and mutual respect], they have difficulty recognizing when a different worldview does not.”

Another element of this asymmetry is how crises function within each worldview. In liberal societies, a crisis provokes questions, such as “What happened?”, “Why?”, and “What can we learn from this?” In ideological ones, whose foundation is different, crises are opportunities for rollout, not inquiry. The narrative is set, the action plans are in place, the orchestra of emotions is expertly rehearsed. A crisis doesn’t inspire their reaction; it triggers it.

That is why protestors appeared on the streets in London within hours, why college campuses in the United States exploded days later with matching slogans, and why the attitudinal response seemed harmonized across the world. It was only those on the inside, who recognized that this was not a task for improv theater, for whom this was a reflex, rather than an act of hesitation

The Biggest Weakness in the West       

I think the biggest weakness in the West is that they have lost confidence in their core values and everything that Western philosophy stands for. These days, with the rise of multiculturalism, it feels like a lot of institutions are scared to stand up for the things they believe in because they do not want to get labeled as intolerant or bigoted. In that kind of environment, “being open” is not always positive. Instead of being a virtue, it becomes a vulnerability.

I did not really get this at first. It was only after I personally lost my place in a community that I had really been trying hard to understand. The exact moment this happened was when I acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. It was at that moment that the whole illusion of “shared values” just disappeared, and I was exposed to the underlying truth beneath the community.

Today, I can say with confidence that “tolerance” without discernment, without understanding, and without inclusion is not really a virtue or moral strength. Instead, it’s a sort of surrender to power and loss of legitimacy. This moment was the end of innocence for me, and that I now look at the institution and the civilization that embraced me in a fundamentally different way.

These insights did not come from theory alone; they emerged from years inside Islamic academic environments where I was welcomed warmly until the moment I stepped outside the boundaries of ideological conformity. My story is only one expression of a larger structural phenomenon, which is networks shaped abroad embedding themselves into Western institutions that no longer defend their philosophical foundations. Unless the West recovers the confidence to distinguish between integration and absorption, it will continue to erode silently.

Our culture is in danger, but the shift isn’t going to be obvious. It won’t be announced or declared, just slowly shoved out of place. Key institutions will be overtaken and our moral footing will slip away. So, I first fell in love with these institutions and held high hopes for them. That’s why it was so painful when I left them, having gained an understanding of something that few in the West are honest with themselves about.

I thought I could understand myself and my place in the world by studying in London. Instead, what I learned shocked me, and my world was turned upside down. In the future, Western countries will have to recognize the asymmetry in these kinds of cultural encounters, and quickly, or else it will find out that the institutions it’ll be welcoming won’t be integrating as it expects, but slowly transforming the West.

References:

[1] [Editor’s note: Islam has two main factions or denominatios – Sunni (about 85-90% majority) and Shia (the minority). Here, ‘Shia’ refers to a subset of orthodox Islam.]

[2] Turner, C. (2023, March 4). University watchdog “engaged” in talks with London college over Iran links — Discussions follow claims that the Islamic College in Willesden has ties to Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Telegraph.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240412001735/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/university-watchdog-engaged-talks-london-college-links-iranian/

[3] C. Turner, “University watchdog “engaged” in talks with London college over Iran links — Discussions follow claims that the Islamic College in Willesden has ties to Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” The Telegraph, (4 March 2023)

https://web.archive.org/web/20240412001735/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/04/university-watchdog-engaged-talks-london-college-links-iranian/

[4] Campaign Against Antisemitism, “Middlesex University reportedly cutting ties with the Islamic College over links to Iran and inflammatory staff, (7 March 2023), https://antisemitism.org/middlesex-university-reportedly-to-cut-ties-with-islamic-college-over-links-to-iran-and-inflammatory-staff

[5] Aarabi 2023.

[6] Aarabi 2023.

[7] Aarabi 2023.

Recommended Resources: 

Answering Islam by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD Set, Mp4 and Mp3)

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

 

Tim Orr serves full-time with the Crescent Project as the Assistant Director of the Internship Program and Area Coordinator, where he is also deeply involved in outreach across the UK. A scholar of Islam, Evangelical minister, conference speaker, and interfaith consultant, Tim brings over 30 years of experience in cross-cultural ministry. He holds six academic degrees, including a Doctor of Ministry from Liberty University and a Master’s in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London. In September, he will begin a PhD in Religious Studies at Hartford International University.

Tim has served as a research associate with the Congregations and Polarization Project at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis, and for two years, he was also a research assistant on the COVID-19 study led by Hartford International University. His research interests include Islamic antisemitism, American Evangelicalism, Shia Islam, and gospel-centered ministry to Muslims.

He has spoken at leading universities and mosques throughout the UK, including Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the University of Tehran. His work has been published in peer-reviewed Islamic academic journals, and he is the author of four books. His fifth book, The Apostle Paul: A Model for Engaging Islam, is forthcoming.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4apWecu

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From Substack to the Arizona Supreme Court: Why This Case Matters to Every State Employee

What began more than three years ago as a Substack post is now headed to the Arizona Supreme Court. That fact alone should give Arizonans pause, not because of me, but because of what Arizona State University is arguing the law allows it to do.

The controversy began with a required ASU employee training called Inclusive Communities. On its face, that title sounds unobjectionable. Having worked at ASU for over two decades as a philosophy professor, I have seen many trainings and ideological fashions come and go. Universities, after all, are places where leftist ideas circulate freely and enforce a chilling effect on the few conservatives that slip through the DEI filter.

The ASU email announcing the required training read: “The training accelerates continuing efforts to encourage meaningful change at ASU while contributing to a national agenda for diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and social justice.” The letter tells us it is required to be taken every two years.

But this training was different. Once I began it, I realized I was being compelled, as a condition of employment, to sit through material that engaged in race-based blame and overt anti-Christian rhetoric. It caused psychological harm and emotional distress.

There were slides with the following teaching straight out of Neitzche’s power dynamic: “Privilege is interconnected with power in our society i.e. those who have privilege have the ability to create/maintain social norms, often to their benefit at the expense of others.” Truth is whatever those in power say it is and the only solution is to disrupt the power dynamic and get your truth into the privileged position. There was a module about how white supremacy is normalized in our society by the unconscious bias of white people.

The race-based content instructed employees to judge entire groups of people according to skin color—precisely the sort of racial essentialism Arizona law prohibits in education when funded by the state. The anti-Christian content was equally clear. Employees were told we must “decolonize” from Christian missionaries and be liberated from “heteronormativity,” the belief, rooted in Scripture, that God created human beings male and female.

This was not optional professional development. It was mandatory bigotry. And it was funded by taxpayer dollars.

Knowing Arizona law well enough, I believed ASU was violating it. So, I wrote about the training on my Substack, expecting little more than to register a protest. Instead, I was surprised when the Goldwater Institute reached out to confirm that yes, ASU’s required training did in fact violate state law, and asked whether I would be willing to take the issue to court.

There is no money involved in this case. The goal is straightforward: enforce Arizona law and end race-based, ideological anti-Christian training imposed on public employees.

ASU’s response has been telling as it flails about trying to find a strategy. First, it denied the training existed. Then it claimed the training did not involve race-based evaluation. Next, it said the training was not required. When those arguments failed due to the simple existence of screenshots, the university abandoned its in-house legal team and hired Perkins Coie (the firm best known for its role in the Clinton campaign’s Russia dossier) to reframe the case entirely.

ASU now argues that I lack standing to sue, that even if the university violated the law, no employee has the right to challenge it in court.

That argument should alarm every state employee, regardless of political ideology. Suddenly, I have gone from the conservative Christian professor opposing DEI intersectionality, to the champion of all employees in Arizona.  I’ll take the promotion.

If ASU prevails, the implication is clear: state employees have no legal recourse when their employer violates the law. Today, the issue involves DEI training. Tomorrow it could involve something else entirely.

Imagine a future administration in which MAGA ideology dominates the university, and faculty are required to attend a hypothetical ICE training they believe violates state law. Under ASU’s position, those employees would have no standing to challenge it. The university would simply move to dismiss the case, and the courts would never reach the merits.

I do not expect bags full of thank-you cards from Marxist professors to arrive at court a la Miracle on 34th St. But ASU has chosen a strategy that places it squarely against employee rights. That is no small matter.

This case is no longer just about defending Christianity against intersectional ideology. It is about whether state employees in Arizona retain the basic right to hold their employer accountable under the law.

That is a cause worth fighting for, all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Recommended Resources: 

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

 

​​Dr. Owen Anderson is a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Arizona State University, a pastor, and a certified jiu-jitsu instructor. He emphasizes the Christian belief in God, human sin, and redemption through Christ, and he explores these themes in his philosophical commentary on the Book of Job. His recent research addresses issues such as DEIB, antiracism, and academic freedom in secular universities, critiquing the influence of thinkers like Rousseau, Marx, and Freud. Dr. Anderson actively shares his insights through articles, books, online classes, and his Substack.

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Teaching Our Kids to Spot Empty Statements 

John and I were at the Iowa State Fair this weekend (in 2019). My husband loves all the fried food. Calories at the fair don’t count, right? Among our scheduled stops, we wanted to see a band that advertised itself as a mix between Stomp and Accapella. Sounds cool right?

We sat down with whatever artery-clogging victual we had just purchased and as the band started to sing, John and I realized that they weren’t exactly what we had thought. They weren’t bad necessarily. They just sounded a whole lot like a group that you’d hear brought to a middle school to give some flowery feel-good generic message—which consequently is exactly what they did.

The lead singer proudly proclaimed that they had decided to switch their focus from just music to making a positive difference in the world (sounds good, right?) They had decided to use their music to spread a message of unity and love. (Again, sounds good, right?) They then launched into a song about how we are all children of the earth.

John and I stayed for a song or two, but once we realized that it wasn’t getting any better, we moved on. However, at the behest of my cousin however, (shout out to Martha!) I decided to share the conversation that John and I had on the way out.

What exactly did they mean by “unity”?    


This is one of those linguistically thefted words that our society is obsessed over. (If you’re not sure what linguistic theft is, check out chapter 4 of the first Mama Bear Apologetics book.) Linguistic theft is when a word (especially a word with Christian connotations) has been taken, redefined, and then put back on the market to champion something that Scripture never intended. Or sometimes, it’s a word that just sounds really great, but upon digging, has no meaning whatsoever. A word like “unity” only has meaning when coupled with a message of what we are to unify with. Without defining what we are unifying over, it’s just empty words, and people can fill in the details with whatever message they want. Share on X

What were we supposed to be unified over?

We actually debated waiting until the concert was over to go and talk to the band and ask them “What exactly is your message of unity regarding?” We expected that they would give some generic version of how we were all humans and needed to stick together. To which we would ask, “What about sex traffickers? Should we be in unity with them?” I’m assuming they would have said no. And of course we’d follow up with, “What about bullies? Should we be united with them?” I’m assuming they’d say no. “So you’re saying there are some people we are supposed to divide ourselves from?” We expected blank faces by that time. But this was the fair. They probably had 12 shows a day and needed a break. This wasn’t the time, so we just quietly left and went to pet a bunch of baby goats.

Who are we supposed to be unified with? Sex-traffickers? Bullies? No? So you’re saying there ARE people from whom we should divide ourselves… #linguistictheft #emptyphrases  Share on X

Unity requires division          

The problem with unity is that it implies division. In order to unify over one thing, you have to divide from its opposite. But nobody wants to talk about that (unless they are in politics, and then all you hear is how evil the other side is.) Everyone wants everyone else to unify with whatever their message is. They just want unity with themselves. Everyone is welcome on my team (as long as you agree with my team.) Why can’t everyone just agree with me?! Is that too hard?!

In order to unify with one thing, you have to divide from its opposite. Teach your kids to ask for clarity early on before they jump on the bandwagon of ‘unity.’ #linguistictheft #emptyphrases #apologetics Share on X

Unity has to have a conviction that people are unified around. Unity without a unifying message is just a group of people with no convictions whatsoever. In Christianity, we are called to unity. 1 Peter 3:8, Philippians 2:2, 1 Corinthians 1:10, Psalm 133:1, Ephesians 4:3. . .  I could go on. But implicit in the Bible’s message of unity, is the source of our unity—the message of the cross, Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Loving God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strengths and loving others as ourselves. We are called to divide from the world and its practices, and unite over shared Lordship and obedience to Christ as defined in the Scriptures. True unity is actually very divisive! It cannot tolerate its opposite.

A call for unity without defining the message is basically asking for a whole crowd of people to gather with no convictions whatsoever. #linguistictheft #whatdoyoumeanbyunity? Share on X

Teaching our kids to critically think through unity  

So this is the message we need to be instilling in our kids day in and day out. When we see messages calling for unity, ask them “What are they asking us to unify over?” or “What does unity with their message mean that we need to divide over?” When our kids only hear smooth and attractive sounding words and dig no further, there is no telling what kind of movement they might accidentally align themselves with in the future. Teach them that it is important to define words before we pledge our allegiance to something that sounds good. Because remember, Satan masquerades as an angel of light. It is not often that the true agenda is on display for the world. (Just look at our blog regarding the Women’s March of 2017. How many people knew that the principles listed were what they were actually marching for?)

As you train your kids to examine a message before they swallow it, you’ll raise kids who are discerning thinkers and less likely to be taken victim to smooth sounding ideologies raised against the knowledge of God.

Recommended Resources: 

Debate: What Best Explains Reality: Atheism or Theism? by Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, and Mp3 

Can All Religions Be True? mp3 by Frank Turek

How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (DVD Set, Mp3, and Mp4)   

Your Most Important Thinking Skill by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, (mp4) download

 

 

Hillary Morgan Ferrer is the founder and President of Mama Bear Apologetics. She feels a burden for providing accessible apologetics resources for busy moms. She is the chief author and editor of the bestselling books  Mama Bear Apologetics: Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies, Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design, and the soon to be released Honest Prayers for Mama Bears. Hillary has her master’s degree in biology and loves helping moms to discern truths and lies in both science and culture. She and her husband, John, have been married for 16 years and minister together as an apologetics team. She can never sneak up on anybody because of her chronic hiccups, which you can hear occasionally on the podcast and in interviews.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4atPdIK

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What Does the Bible Say About Illegal Immigration? My Friendly Response to a Well-known Pentecostal Pastor

The topic of immigration is boiling over these days. It’s complex and emotional, especially when it affects our communities and families.

Recently, a well-known Puerto Rican Pentecostal pastor named Omar Lugo  presented a Facebook video and a written post on this issue, citing various Bible verses that discuss how we should treat foreigners. His approach seemed to suggest that human laws regarding immigration shouldn’t matter because divine laws are above them (without explaining how they directly contradict God’s law).

While I share his concern for showing compassion, I believe his argument stems from biblical silence and fails to demonstrate that current immigration laws violate God’s law.

The Argument from Silence in Biblical Interpretation

Pastor Omar used passages like Leviticus 19:33-34, Exodus 22:21, Deuteronomy 10:18-19, Zechariah 7:10, Matthew 25:35, Hebrews 13:2, and Ephesians 2:19 to highlight that we should love the foreigner. He did not, however, address whether these texts assume the foreigners were legal or not.

This is important because Israel’s laws in the Old Testament regulated who could stay in the land (Exodus 12:48-49). In that context, the term “foreigners” (gerim) referred to those who lived legally among the Israelites and were subject to the same laws. Otherwise, they could not remain and had to be “cut off” from the land. Therefore, assuming these passages apply to all types of immigration—legal or illegal—is an argument from silence. It relies on what the text does not explicitly say rather than what it does. This reasoning cannot be used to conclude that human immigration laws always contradict God’s will.

Pastor Omar also indicated that modern immigration laws are not found in the Bible. Again, this is an argument from silence and anachronistic.

Romans 13: Obey the Government. . . . Always?

In his video, the pastor stated that divine laws are above human laws and used examples, if I recall correctly, like same-sex marriage or prostitution, which are legal in some places but not supported by the church. I completely agree with this statement; our ultimate loyalty is to God, not human laws. He did not, however, explain how immigration laws violate divine law, despite being asked.

Romans 13:1-5 reminds us that human authorities have been established by God, and unless a law directly contradicts God’s will, Christians are to obey it.

Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. 2 So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. 3 For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honor you. 4 The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong. 5 So you must submit to them, not only to avoid punishment, but also to keep a clear conscience.

According to Title 8, Chapter 12, code 1325 of the United States Code (if I remember correctly), it is a crime to enter the country illegally. Therefore, those who cross illegally are committing a crime, as stipulated by the law.

The pastor also mentioned that churches are sanctuaries where illegal immigrants could enter, and the police could not remove them since churches were considered “sensitive locations.”

They were. An important point is that this is not a law being violated by the police but rather an internal policy of ICE. A policy serves as a guideline, not as a law (after I pointed this out, he walked it back).

Roman Citizenship and Israelite Citizenship

A historical example illustrates the importance of legality and order. During Paul’s time, the Roman Empire had strict laws on how non-Romans could obtain citizenship. Not everyone could enter the empire, ignore its rules, and enjoy the rights of citizens. There were three main ways a person could acquire Roman citizenship:

1. By birth in a Roman family or Roman province: Citizenship was inherited if both parents were citizens or, in some cases, if the father was a citizen. It was also granted by being born in a Roman province, as was Paul’s case.
2. By purchasing citizenship: Some could obtain it by paying a significant sum, as mentioned by the commander in Acts 22:28: “I acquired this citizenship for a large sum of money.”
3. By merit or special grant: Those who served the empire (such as non-Roman soldiers in the military) or performed exceptional acts could be rewarded with citizenship.

These restrictions show that even in a powerful culture like Rome, there was no indiscriminate access to the benefits of citizenship. The system ensured that people recognized and respected governmental authority.

Necessity, Compassion and Justice: The Principle of Proverbs 6:30-31

The Bible acknowledges that necessity can lead people to break the law. Proverbs 6:30-31 says: “excuses might be found for a thief who steals because he is starving. 31 But if he is caught, he must pay back seven times what he stole, even if he has to sell everything in his house” (New Living Translation).

This principle applies to illegal immigration. We can understand and empathize with those who, out of desperation, cross a border without documents. Many are good neighbors, hard workers, and productive members of society. This does not, however, eliminate the legal consequences or the fact that the initial act was a crime. Compassion must not override the principle of justice. The end does not justify the means. Blessings should not obtain through illegal or immoral methods.

How Should the Church Respond?

As a church, we have a responsibility to balance grace and truth:

1. Show compassion: Help immigrants, regardless of their status, with immediate needs, spiritual, and emotional support. Knowing they are here illegally does not give us the right to mistreat them. Neither is the church a bunch of ICE officials, authorized to make arrests. We should, instead, encourage them to make things right with the law.

2. Be realistic: Acknowledge that disobedience to laws has consequences. Promoting more humane and dignified solutions does not mean ignoring sin or illegality.

3. Advocate for justice: As citizens, we must work for immigration systems that are fair and reflect both human dignity and the need for social order without undermining the safety and well-being of naturalized citizens.

In conclusion, we cannot allow love for our neighbor to become an excuse to ignore justice or legality. The Bible calls us to be compassionate, but it also calls us to obey the laws and promote a balance between the two. To combine compassion with realism, grace with truth. This is a difficult topic, but as Christians, we are called to be a light in the midst of this complexity. The following were 4 common objections I receive from other people after my response to pastor Omar that I think will be of benefits.

Answering Common Objections

The “Hard Working Immigrant” Objection

“But they are hardworking, decent people who do the jobs Americans don’t want to do: planting and harvesting our food, building our homes, cleaning our streets and yards, and caring for our children and elderly.”

This argument sounds noble, but in reality, it is the same one used by 19th-century slaveholders when opposing abolition: “If we free the slaves, who will pick our cotton?” This is not an argument for justice but one of convenience.

Taking advantage of the fear and desperation of people fleeing extreme poverty and persecution to pay them poverty wages—far below the legal minimum—is not compassion. It is exploitation. And justifying it by saying, “They still earn more than they would in their home country,” does not make it any less immoral. This practice, far from being altruistic, is pure greed disguised as pragmatism.

Many business owners prefer cheap labor with no legal protections because it allows them to save thousands, if not millions, of dollars. But when those same workers are deported and their businesses collapse due to labor shortages, breached contracts, and lawsuits over unfinished work, they will have no one to blame but themselves.

And yes, the economy might take a temporary hit.

Prices may rise, and our comfort may be affected. But an economy built on the exploitation of the most vulnerable is neither sustainable nor morally acceptable. We cannot continue justifying illegal immigration under the pretext that “we need them” when, in reality, we have created a system that profits from their suffering.

The “You’re a Privilege” Objection

“You speak from a place of privilege. You don’t care because it doesn’t affect you directly. But if you were one of them, your tune would be different. What wouldn’t you do for your children, for your family?”

Yes, I speak from privilege. God gave me the privilege of being born on American soil, with the rights and opportunities that come with it. But that does not invalidate my argument.

Saying that my opinion holds no weight because of where I was born is like when an atheist says, “You’re only a Christian because you were born into a Christian family and in a country with Christian roots. If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would be Muslim.” But the truth of a belief does not depend on how I acquired it.

The veracity of Christianity does not change just because I was born in a Christian nation, just as the validity of my opinion on immigration does not depend on my citizenship. An argument must be evaluated based on its truth, not on the person presenting it.

“What wouldn’t you do for your children?”, they might ask. But I wouldn’t break just laws. Because when a law is just and I choose to violate it to obtain benefits and privileges, I am not acting in faith but in fear and desperation. I am not trusting that God will provide for my family; I am relying on my own means, even if they are unlawful.

Proverbs 6:30-31 tells us that while we may understand a thief’s hunger, stealing still has consequences. And Romans 13 is clear: opposing just earthly laws is opposing God. Love for our children does not give us a license to do what is wrong. God does not need us to break His principles in order to bless us.

The “But These are Your Compatriots” Objection

“I seriously don’t understand why you have such a big fight against them. We’re supposed to be Latinos, compatriots. We, immigrants (legal ones), should be more empathetic and look for solutions that benefit all of us. Many of these people have been here for years.”

My fight is not against people but against a system that incentivizes human suffering and illegality under emotional pretexts. Promoting, encouraging, or justifying illegal immigration is not an act of empathy but complicity in a cycle of exploitation and violence.

Most people who cross illegally do not do so alone. They do it through coyotes—members of criminal cartels who see immigrants as merchandise. These traffickers not only scam them by charging exorbitant fees (which migrants often pay back through forced labor or sexual exploitation), but they also rape, mutilate, and, in many cases, murder them.

The testimonies are abundant:
• Systematic sexual violence: A 2017 Doctors Without Borders report revealed that 1 in 3 women who cross the border illegally experience sexual violence. Many even take contraceptives before the journey because they assume they will be raped.
• Kidnappings and murders: A 2021 Human Rights First report found that over 6,000 migrants were kidnapped, raped, or murdered at the border between 2020 and 2021 while waiting to cross or after they had crossed.
• Human trafficking and modern slavery: The U.S. State Department estimates that thousands of illegal immigrants end up in human trafficking networks, particularly children and teenagers, who are sold into labor and sex exploitation rings.

When the border is open or permissive, these crimes increase. Allowing illegal immigration is not an act of kindness. It is fueling the cartel and perpetuating the suffering of the most vulnerable. If you truly care about immigrants, you will do as I do: work to discourage illegal entry to minimize these horrors. Compassion is not demonstrated by encouraging danger but by promoting legal and safe pathways for migration.

If you truly care about immigrants, you will do as I do: work to discourage illegal entry to minimize these horrors. Compassion is not demonstrated by encouraging danger but by promoting legal and safe pathways for migration.

The “Immigration Law is Racist” Objection

“But this immigration law is immoral because it’s nearly impossible to become a citizen due to the cost and requirements. It’s even racist and xenophobic! The Bible urges us to treat foreigners well. Refusing to help them in their desperate need goes against the biblical principle of hospitality.”

I understand the concern for the foreigner and agree that every person should be treated with dignity. The Bible calls us to hospitality (Leviticus 19:33-34), but hospitality is not the same as anarchy. A home opens its doors with order, not allowing just anyone to enter without discretion, destabilizing the household itself.

Regulating immigration is not an act of racism or xenophobia; it is an act of protection and prudence towards the citizens. Every nation has the right to determine who enters its territory, just as a family has the right to decide who enters its home.

1 Timothy 5:8 is clear: “If anyone does not provide for his own, especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” The principle is the same if we extrapolate it to the nation. A government that neglects its own people to indiscriminately care for foreigners is not acting justly. Being compassionate does not mean being irresponsible.

Just as a father cannot sacrifice his family’s well-being to give everything to strangers, a country cannot allow uncontrolled immigration that overwhelms its social and economic resources.

Immigration laws do not exist to exclude certain groups based on race or nationality. They exist to ensure that those who enter contribute to the nation’s well-being. Even in the Bible, foreigners could live in Israel, but under certain conditions:

• They had to integrate into the country’s culture and laws. (Exodus 12:49 – “The same law shall apply to the native and to the foreigner residing among you.”)
• They had to work and contribute to the common good. (2 Thessalonians 3:10 – “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”)
• There was no promotion of disorderly entry. (Nehemiah 13:3 shows that the Jews regulated who could live among them to protect their identity and well-being.)

An orderly immigration system allows a nation to flourish. A chaotic system harms citizens, overwhelms public resources, and enriches human traffickers.

When the Bible speaks of welcoming the foreigner, it does so within the context of order and justice. God commanded Israel to protect foreigners, but not at the expense of the nation’s well-being.

If we truly want to help immigrants, the solution is not to open borders indiscriminately but to advocate for fair and sustainable processes. Allowing illegal entry only perpetuates exploitation, abuse, and the overburdening of a system that, when it collapses, can help neither citizens nor foreigners.

Recommended Resources: 

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

 

Miguel Rodriguez is the founder of Smart Faith, a platform dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith with clarity and confidence. After experiencing a miraculous healing at 14, he developed a passion for knowing God through study and teaching. He now serves as the Director of Christian Education and a Bible teacher at his local church while also working as a freelance email marketer. Living in Orlando, Florida, with his wife and two daughters, Miguel seeks to equip believers with practical and intellectual tools to strengthen their faith. Through Smart Faith, he provides apologetics and self-improvement content to help Christians live with wisdom and integrity.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4q958kj

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Stranger Things: Was Vecna a Victim?

***This review of Stranger Things Season 5 contains major spoilers. Consider yourself warned.

It’s a new year, and the end of an era. Stranger Things, the wildly successful Netflix show, has officially concluded. I watched the show as a fan but also as one who is interested in the underlying worldview. No piece of media is completely neutral. In fact, the arts are meant to be an imaginative exploration of ideas. In story, you don’t just observe beliefs, you inhabit them as an “insider.” If you are not familiar with the show, I would warn that it contains language, violence, and at times depictions of what I determine to be demonic. Season 4 was particularly demonic, and I almost stopped watching. But I was a youth pastor at the time, and most of my students were watching it and needing to debrief. I kept going—and I suspect many other Christians are looking for a debrief as well.

C.S. Lewis draws from Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity to discuss the difference between “enjoyment” and “contemplation.”[1] Enjoyment is experiencing something: the taste of a cookie, the feeling of the breeze across one’s face, the excitement of a live concert. It is something we experience and about which we have an insider perspective. But contemplation is its opposite. It is to look at something, to examine it, to understand it. Lewis discusses why native religious experiences look silly to outsiders. The reason is because outsiders are looking at the experiences, but the natives are looking along the experiences.[2] They possess a different kind of knowledge. In Stranger Things, I want to enter the experience (look along) a character that audiences were invited into: Henry Creel, also known as Vecna.

Vecna the Victim?

Hinted at during all of season 5 was that Vecna had childhood trauma he did not want to face. Max, as she was trapped in his mind, found shelter in one such memory. Toward the end of the season, Max and Holly Wheeler were trying to escape and found the entrance to a mineshaft. It was clear that this place was not meant to be found. In it was a traumatic memory playing on repeat: the moment Henry became Vecna.

We see a young Henry Creel attempting to rescue a man with a briefcase who was badly injured. But the man, out of his mind and deeply suspicious of Henry, attempted to kill Henry. One shot through Henry’s hand was enough for him to realize he needed to act in self-defense. The result was Henry killing the man with a rock. Henry, still in shock, then opened the briefcase. It was clear that the injured mystery man believed the contents of the briefcase was worth killing over. Curiosity was too much. Inside was a glowing asteroid, and upon touching it, created a connection to what the children called The Mind Flayer. Henry was never the same.

Trauma changes us. Pain is a teacher. Identity is often formed by what is done to us. Henry was forced into self-defense and stumbled upon the alluring power of The Mind Flayer. He did not choose this; it was done to him. This produced great shame, a memory that Henry did not want to face. He avoided that place in his memory until the finale, likely because of the pain it caused him. We all wish that the pain done to us never happened. We imagine what life would have looked like had such pain never occurred. For Henry, the mineshaft was the ultimate place of “what-ifs.” A childhood taken. Innocence corrupted. A new trajectory solidified.

But the showrunners did something unexpected. I thought, while watching it, that they would continue to push a well-established story trope that has become popular in the last decade or so: there are no villains, just victims. Some examples of this. Killmonger from Black Panther (2018) was not evil, he was just abandoned, experienced racial in justice and oppression. Second, Scarlet Witch from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) was merely a story of the loss of her family and unresolved grief. She was not portrayed as evil; she was simply wounded. I could go on about Elsa in Frozen or Kylo Ren in Disney’s version of Star Wars. The trope has become so engrained in our stories that we are expected to, at some point, empathize with these wounded villains. In the finale of Stranger Things, there was a moment where I thought the show was going to treat Henry (Vecna) the same way. He was not evil; he was just a victim. But to my surprise, Henry revealed to Holly that he could have resisted The Mind Flayer; he could have walked away.

Henry was the victim of a moment, but his identity as the antagonist was a choice. The mineshaft produced a wound in Henry, one that he acted out of from his pain. There are two responses to woundedness: be shaped by it or be healed from it. Henry was shaped; Jesus invites healing. One quick comment on woundedness. The church often mistakes sin with wounds. Victims, and their subsequent woundedness, are told to repent. But how do you repent of a wound? How do you turn from something that was done to you? This is the grave mistake between sin and wounds. You cannot repent of wounds – you repent of sin. But here is another important distinction. Sin often comes from wounds. Henry was deeply wounded, hurt, isolated from this event, yet he chose an identity of sin as a result. There was a moment where Henry was facing this memory, and Will was challenging Henry to (in essence) repent. But Henry was convinced that The Mind Flayer’s critique of humanity was correct: it was corrupt beyond saving. The only solution, to Henry, was to remake the world by destroying it.

Responding to Woundedness

The final battle was between two victims who chose different paths. Henry allowed his woundedness shape his life, whereas El did not. The show does a masterful job of showing Henry and El as two parallel victims – both with powers, both with childhood trauma, both with legitimate motives for revenge. But El healed; Henry did not. The difference? Relationships. Imagine if El was not found by Mike and the gang and she was not “fathered” by Hopper. El was slowly healed by her loving (yet imperfect) relationships. Henry, on the other hand, became filled with malice the longer he was isolated. We can see Henry’s perspective only when we understand who he was connected to: he chose to “abide” in The Mind Flayer, which led to his destruction.

The gospel invites us to both healing and repentance. All of us have things that were done to us, but we all must choose how we respond to such things. Henry responded with more corruption and evil, El responded by healing and, in the end, self-sacrifice. She was the “Christ-type” of the show insofar that she was the self-sacrificing “savior” who ended the cycle of child experimentation. This points to Christ, who experienced great suffering yet sacrificed himself for unworthy humanity. What will you choose? God is the only healer. Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

If you are broken, go to the one who has the power to heal. If you have made sinful choices because of woundedness, receive the gift of repentance and turn from your sins. John the Baptist exclaims,

“’The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:15)

Henry Creel was the victim who became the victimizer and villain. How will you respond to your own pain?

Choose healing and turn from any subsequent sins.

Choose Christ.

References:

[1] C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: the Shape of My Early Life (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2017), 265.

[2] C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 232.

Recommended Resources: 

If God, Why Evil? (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

Why Doesn’t God Intervene More? (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek

Why does God allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People? (DVD) and (mp4 Download) by Frank Turek 

Relief From the Worst Pain You’ll Ever Experience (DVD) (MP3) (Mp4 Download) by Gary Habermas

 

Richard Eng serves as the Lead Pastor at Bethel Evangelical Free church in Devils Lake, ND. He is the author of the illustrated children’s book “What Is Heaven Like?” (2022), and has written on faith and cultural issues for The Expository Times, FreeThinking Ministries, CrossExamined, and others. He received his M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University, and degrees Ministry and Bible from Grace University. He and his wife have three young children — who are most likely making a mess in the living room right now. 

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