An apologetic from Romans 1:18-25

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their ungodliness and unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom 1:18-25, ESV)

In Paul's opening of the book of Romans, as he lays the groundwork for the necessity and efficacy of Christ's substitutionary atoning sacrifice on the cross, he points out where the "ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (v. 18a) leads. They, and by they, Paul really means all of us before the justification and sanctification of Jesus (Rom 3:22b-25a), "suppress the truth" (v. 18b), ignore the "things that have been made" that point to God (v. 19-20), and "did not honor him as God or give thanks to him" (v. 21b) even though "they knew God" (v. 21a). As a result, they "became fools" (v. 22) and exchanged God's glory for "images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (v. 23). Paul reemphasizes this point in verses 24-25. God gives them over to what is in their hearts because they worshiped the creature rather than God. Now clearly, Paul is talking about traditional forms of idol worship as forbidden by God in the 10 commandments:

4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them... (Exo 20:4-5a, ESV)

 The parallel phrases between the two passages make this evident:

Exodus	Romans
carved image	image
likeness	resembling
in the heaven above	birds
in the earth beneath	mortal man, animals, creeping things
not bow…or serve	worshiped and served the creature

The point I am about to make was not the point on Paul's mind. Paul's point was that idol worship, or creature worship, is a result of the unrighteousness of men. So, if we see someone worshiping "the creature rather than the Creator", we know that they are unrighteous and need the Lord Jesus Christ before they perish in their unbelief. From here, I think we can develop a powerful offensive apologetic for our Mormon friends and family. For starters, we have to look at the Mormon conception of Jesus Christ.

"Now who is Jesus Christ, and how could he bring about the resurrection when no other man nor all men put together could do so? The Scriptures respond to these questions. They make it clear that the spirit person Jesus Christ-as are the spirits of all men-is the Son of God, our Eternal Father. In this respect he is like all other men. He differs from all other men, however, by reason of the fact that men's bodies are begotten of mortal men and are, therefore, subject to death, being descendants and inheritors from Adam, while Christ's physical body was begotten of God, our Heavenly Father-an immortal being not subject to death. Christ, therefore, inherited from his Father the faculty to live on indefinitely." (Marion G. Romney, Conference Reports, April 1975, pp. 123-4)

The emphasis above is mine. So, Jesus Christ is just like all other men. He is a Son of God by virtue of the fact that he is a spirit child of the Eternal Father just like the rest of us. All of us, on the Mormon conception, were begotten in the pre-existence by Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

"Jesus was born of heavenly parents in a premortal world-he was the firstborn of our Heavenly Father" (Robert D. Hales, "Your Sorrow Shall Be Turned to Joy," Ensign (Conference Edition), November 1983, p. 67)

Jesus was the firstborn to heavenly parents. What does this mean? What does this have to do with the Romans passage I talked about earlier? The Mormon Jesus is a created being whom Mormons worship as the savior of mankind. Make no mistake that this is a different Jesus from the one in the Bible.

"As a church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say." (Gordon Hinckley, "We look to Christ," Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2002, p. 90)

Their own leaders reluctantly admit that this is a different Jesus. Their doctrine proclaims that he is just another creature, an exalted one perhaps, but a creature none-the-less. But this is a major problem for them according to Paul in Romans 1:18-25. They are worshiping the creature rather than the Creator if Jesus Christ is not God, the creator. They are unrighteous as evidenced by the fact that they worship a created Jesus who is not God. I think this could be an effective apologetic for use with Mormons. I wouldn't expect any Mormon, on the spot, to admit that you are right and then ask how they can be saved. But, I think a major task of apologetics is just to "put a stone in their shoe" as Greg Koukl says. Just give them something to think about that ruffles their worldview.

Are you an associator?

I am reading a book about the birth of Islam through the eyes of John of Damascus. It is titled, John of Damascus: First Apologist to the Muslims. John lived from around 675-750 AD. At this time, Islam, although not known by that name in that time, was still developing theologically. The dominant view of the Quran during this period was that, since it contained the words of God, and God was uncreated and eternal, so was the Quran. Of course, for Christians, the uncreated Word of God is not the Bible, which is the created word a la creation, but Jesus Christ. Because Muslims are strict monotheists, unitarians in fact, they accused Christians of being associators. This meant that they associated Jesus, who they saw as created, with the uncreated God and thus committed the heinous sin of shirk.
John, in his turn, accused Muslims of being mutilators by separating God from His spirit and His word. For an explanation of this, I will quote from John himself in his Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen (Muslim):

If you will be asked by a Saracen, "What do you say the Christ is?" say to him, "Word of God." And do not suppose that you commit a sin, because in the Scripture he is called Word and wisdom and arm and power of God and many other similar things, for he has many names. And you also return the question to him and ask "What is Christ called in your Scripture?" If he tries to avoid the question and wants to question you on another subject, do not answer him before he has answered your question. He will be compelled to answer you, "In my Scripture Christ is called Spirit and Word of God." [This can be found in Surahs 4:171 and 5:110] And then ask him again, "According to your Scripture, are the Spirit of God and the Word said to be uncreated or created?" If he says they are uncreated, tell him: "Behold, you agree with me, for that which is not created by someone must be God who creates!" If he is actually bold enough to say that they are created, say to him, "And who created the Spirit and the Word of God?" And if, out of perplexity, he tells you that God created them, say to him: "a little before you were saying that God created them. Well, if I told you the same thing, you would have said to me, 'You have destroyed your testimony, and whatever you say from now on, I will not believe you.' Nevertheless, I will ask you this, 'Before God created the Spirit and the Word did he have neither Spirit nor Word?'" And he will flee from you, having nothing to say in answer to you. For those who say such things among the Saracens are regarded as heretics and are rejected and detested by other Saracens. And if you wnat to denounce him to other Saracens he will be very much afraid of you. (John of Damascus, Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen, 5:1-22)

The thrust of John's apologetic is easy to see. If the Word is uncreated, then He is God, but if the Word is created, then the Muslim is a heretic based on the orthodoxy of the day and his testimony is invalid. In other writings, John carried this argument further by questioning them about how God could be without His Word and Spirit for eternity. Thus we have the accusatory names that Christians and Muslims exchanged at this time: associators and mutilators.

Book Review: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ

*This will be my last post of the year. Next week, December 26th, I am going to go ahead and post the index for my bible study on the book of Acts. This series will run Monday through Friday, from Monday, January 2nd to Friday, March 31st.The total running time for the series is about 12 hours. There are 65 posts, ranging in time from about 2 minutes to about 30 minutes, with most of them in the 10-15 minute range.*

I am going to do a quick review of the book: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ written by Robert M. Bowman, Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski. This is a short book for a topic so big, but it is packed with information about the subject on which it speaks. The book has a popular level feel to it; in both its writing style and its presentation. It is very easy to read, except one chapter that goes into several arguments about the Greek language. Despite its easy to read style however, in terms of the amount and level of information, it is academic in its scope. I have been surprised, after looking at the chapter titles and overall length, how chock full of useful and insightful information this book contains.
While this book is only about part of the Trinity, 2/3rds of it really, God the Father and Jesus Christ, it presents a clear understanding of how the New Testament writers carefully wrote about Jesus Christ in light of their strong belief that God is one. They clearly represent Jesus as God, but not as the Father. When I converted, this was a topic I struggled with mightily. How can it be that God is both the Father and the Son? The second time I ever read the Bible all the way through, I highlighted every reference I could find, in both the Old and New Testaments, that seemed to represent the Trinity. There were a lot. Once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere. This book has surprised me in how deep and broad the evidence is for the deity of Christ. Needless to say, Jesus is God, and this book is a great resource for i) affirming your own belief in the Godhood of the Son and ii) for defending this doctrine from skeptics and other "Christian" relgions (i.e. LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.) who deny this fact.
The authors make it real easy to absorb the basic information as well by offering an acrostic to remember for why Jesus is God: HANDS. They then fill in the reasons in each chapter. Here is the acrostic

Jesus shares the...

Honors due to God: worship, prayer to, singing to, faith in, reverence
Attributes due to God: eternal, uncreated, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, incomprehensible
Names of God: YHWH, Lord, Shepherd, Rock, Bridegroom, Savior, first and last
Deeds that God does: creation and sustainment of the universe, saving people from sin, spiritual blessings, speaking with absolute truth and authority, raising the dead, judges all humanity
Seat of God's throne: Jesus shares God's very position of divine rule over all creation

In closing, I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to better understand the fact that Jesus is God or those of you who may encounter "Christians" who do not affirm the Trinity and need a resource to defend what really is, the doctrine of the Christian faith. Here is a link: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ.

Jesus' Love and Our Sin

*Starting on Monday, January 2nd, I will be posting a Bible study of the book of Acts. It will be posted in increments 5 days per week (Mon through Fri) for 13 weeks (65 posts). I wanted to announce this early, so that if you so desire, you can plan accordingly to read and study along with my lessons. On the 2nd, an index post will go up (as well as the first lesson) that will allow you to navigate more easily as the series grows in size.*


Think about it for a minute; what are the first words of Jesus' ministry? Don't look down! Think! What are they? Many of you probably are thinking of Jesus' temptations right now. He quotes from Deuteronomy all three times that he rebukes the devil. That is not the beginning of his ministry though. Figure it out yet? It also is not his words to John the Baptist about "fulfill[ing] all righteousness" when he is baptized. Got it now? Jesus' first words of ministry are the following:

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt 4:17)

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,  and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)

It is striking to me that Jesus' first words in his mission to reconcile the lost to the Father were "repent". Repent literally means to change one's mind. Why did Jesus tell everyone to change their mind? Change their mind about what? Paul answers that in his letter to the Colossians. As he extols the majesty of Jesus Christ and his peacemaking mission by way of the cross, he follows that with this: "And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds," (Col 1:21). That is why Jesus called everyone to change their mind. They (and we!) were in open rebellion to God; alienated from Him, hostile in our thinking about Him, and sinning against Him in our every action. This is the direct result of our sin, which separates us from God with a chasm that we cannot ever hope to bridge under our own power.
The next question we must ask is: "Why?" Why did Jesus come down to earth to die for us if we were all in open rebellion against him (remember, Jesus is God) in both thought and deed? Now this you know: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Love. Jesus came because he loves us. That in and of itself is incredibly profound. But, we should keep reading. Because if we do, a fantastic insight can be found within the passage that goes with one of the most famous verses of all time. Here is John 3:16-18:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

I want you to notice that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it. That means, in general, when Jesus is going around telling people about the Kingdom of God, he is not condemning them. He is telling them that he has come to save them if they will believe in him. Now think back to his first words. He told everyone to repent. In effect, he was telling everyone that they were sinful, separated from God, and what to do about it: Repent! Change your mind before it's too late! Jesus, in telling people that they were sinners and needed to repent, was not condemning anyone. Let's look at this in a logical syllogism:

1. If Jesus did not come to condemn the world, then his words and actions did not condemn anyone.

2. Jesus did not come to condemn the world. (John 3:17)

3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone.

Jesus told people about their sinful ways without condemning them. The insight here concerns our efforts to evangelize the lost. Many people are nervous about sharing the gospel because they are aware that they have to give the "bad news" before the "good news". People must understand that they are lost before they can understand that they need to be saved. This means telling them about their sinful ways and calling on them to repent and believe in Christ. Our culture has made it taboo to tell people that what they think is wrong and that you have the truth. This makes evangelism even more daunting because we are conditioned in many ways to think that if we tell someone they are wrong, then that is rude and intolerant. Our Lord Jesus Christ, always the counterculturalist, has another message: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In other words, you are wrong, everything is not okay with you, you need to be saved from yourself. This is part of the message you should be delivering to people when you share the gospel. Using Christ as our example and realizing, as I argued above, that Jesus' calling everyone to repentance was not condemnation, it can be seen that our evangelizing efforts that include merely telling people they are sinners and to repent isn't condemnation either. In fact, Jesus came because he loves us. Logic again:

1. If Jesus came because he loved the world, then his words and actions were loving towards the world.

2. Jesus came because he loved the world. (John 3:16)

3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions were loving towards the world.

And another:

1. Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone.

2. Jesus' words and actions were loving towards the world.

3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone and were loving towards the world.

Society is wrong. Telling people to repent because they are sinners is both loving and not condemnatory. This should give us comfort. Even if our society cannot see the truth of Jesus' words, we can trust that God, who knows all the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, is pleased when He sees us delivering the truth to a lost world.

Science and the Bible According to Andy Stanley

Much has been said recently about Andy Stanley's sermon series "Who Needs God?", particularly his comments about the Bible in the third installment; "The Bible Tells Me So". His statements about the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ are very confused and take a classical apologetic approach much to far. Classical apologetics will take a presupposition like the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible and, for the sake of argument, lay that aside. But, Andy Stanley seems to be encouraging the jettisoning of that view in everything but name only. There has been some very good analysis of the problems with his position already. I won't comment on them anymore. See the links below, including one that supports Pastor Stanley.

http://michaeljkruger.com/is-the-bible-foundational-to-christianity-engaging-with-andy-stanley/

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/is-christianity-bookish-faith.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-big-bad-wolf.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/inerrancy-and-general-historical.html

http://crossexamined.org/andy-stanley-right-foundation-christianity-defend/  (defends Andy Stanley)

What I would like to address are his comments in the second part; "Gods of the No Testament". The part I will discuss below starts at about 25 minutes in on the message only version.

http://northpointonline.tv/messages/who-needs-god/gods-of-the-no-testament

In the sermon, Andy rightly attacks people's misconceived notions about who God is. The aptly named "somebody-told-me-so god". In other words, someone along the line told a Christian this is who God is, but in reality that's not correct, such as; "bodyguard god". This god stops at nothing to protect you and supply all your needs according to your whim at the moment. Andy gives other examples of gods that are not real and does a fair job of deconstructing them. Where he falls apart, however, is in "anti-science god". His overarching message is that the details of creation do not constitute the foundation of our faith and we shouldn't abandon God over them. For instance, and this is my example, not his; a hyper-literal reading of the Bible would suggest that the Earth is flat. When someone finds out, after being told that the Earth is flat, that we have scientific and photographic evidence that the Earth is round, they shouldn't abandon God. They should rethink their interpretation of scripture by paying attention to poetic or metaphoric language based on the literary genre of the passage they are reading. So, here, I think Pastor Stanley is correct. However, he quickly ventures into dangerous territory.
His opening remarks about "anti-science god" pit "undeniable science vs. unreliable religion". He also says: "When religion and science conflict, at the end of the day, if you are an honest person, science must win. But the message that we get sometimes, the message you grew up with, and perhaps the reason you just walked away from God, is you grew up with a message that said; "Quit thinking and start believing!". This is very confused. Of course, if you were told to quit thinking, then that is wrong. But, does that mean that you just believe science in every instance where it supposedly conflicts with the Bible? Hardly. I'm not suggesting we ignore the advances of science, but Andy is talking about science as if it is an authoritative and infallible body of knowledge that should never be challenged. Really!? If scientific knowledge is monolithic and infallible, why are there so many competing theories on various topics? Let's take cosmology for instance. Which theory of the universes' origin is undeniable? The standard model, oscillating model, chaotic inflationary model, vacuum fluctuation model, quantum gravity model, or the cyclic ekpyrotic model? The standard model is the generally accepted model of universe origins due to its broad defensibility based on observable evidence, although opinion is somewhat splintered. Guess what? This model fits with a plain reading of Genesis 1 on either a young earth or an old earth view.
Andy continues by saying that "God or science is a false alternative". Three cheers for him! I totally agree. But then he puts his foot in his mouth with a terrible example. Christians are hypocrites for using medicinal science to heal our kids and ignoring science in other areas. We take them to the doctor while we pray in the background. This is some major equivocation concerning "science". Medicinal science is not the same as say, theoretical astrophysics. First of all, the use of antibiotics for instance, does not conflict with anything in the Bible. Praying and taking your kid to the doctor is perfectly OK. There is no command in scripture that says we should only pray to God when someone gets sick. This also ignores the fact that ultimately, God's sovereignty and providence rule that situation anyway, no matter what the doctors do. Secondly, as I said before, Andy is equivocating on the term science. He is putting all things considered science into one big lump and clearly they are not the same. He is using an obviously wrongheaded example, the use of doctors and medicine for sick kids, to say that we, as Christians, should accept all science, even when it conflicts with the Bible. That is a false transference that doesn't logically follow.
Just to make sure we're not confused, Andy says: "The moment your theology conflicts with the discoveries of science, you have a theological problem, not a science problem." And a little later: "We're hypocrites. If we lean into science for our health, why would we reject science in any other capacity?" It is no wonder why Andy views the Bible the way he does. He has an "undeniable" body of science that informs his worldview, including how he reads and interprets the Bible. In my understanding of what his sermon means: he isn't suggesting that we see where our reading of scripture might be wrong in light of science (or vice versa) and then see how we can attempt to make them compatible, like the flat Earth example above (if compatibility, broadly speaking, is possible and I'm not saying that it is in all cases); he is suggesting that we always believe in the science and simply abandon scripture that doesn't fit or reinterpret it to make it fit. This is a very misinformed and confused view of the interplay of science and religion. Look here for a short, but informative article about this topic. As believers in Jesus, I think we are called to read two books. The Bible and the book of nature or what theologians have traditionally called natural revelation. We should always be asking the question: are we, as fallen humanity, reading both correctly?
Andy also seems to be missing the fact that the preaching of the Gospel, combined with the drawing of the Father to Christ and the conviction of the Holy Spirit on an unbeliever, are how God has ordained salvation to be effected. As I have taught in my classes at church, apologetic methods are a secondary tool to the Gospel. In the end, I think Andy Stanley wants to knock down as many barriers as possible to faith in Jesus Christ. I think he is muddying the waters by taking his apologetic method too far. These are noble intentions, but noble intentions don't always produce noble results.

A New Brand of Evangelicalism

I read a lot of articles and blogs from a variety of viewpoints online. Atheist, Mormon, Catholic; you name it, I'll read it. I like to see what more than just my own group is thinking and teaching about the truth of the reality around us. This also helps me to be aware of buzzwords that certain communities use so I can recognize (at least sometimes, though not all the time) if a writer or speaker identifies with a particular community who is teaching something antithetical to orthodox Christianity. This allows me to beware, though I still try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I thought I would share this article and offer some critique of it. The point of this post isn't to trash these "progressive evangelicals" in a personal way, but to point out that bad thinking about truth, especially with regard to matters of faith, is prevalent and something to be avoided. We should strive to be good critical thinkers. Here a link to the article, though I will quote it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-phipps/progressive-evangelicals_b_11824426.html

Note: everything from the article is in quotation marks. My own comments are not.

"There is a story in three of the four gospels where Jesus stages a protest in the temple during Passover. He releases the animals that were being sold for sacrifice, he overturns the moneychanging tables, and he rebukes the merchants for taking advantage of the poor. The story ends with Jesus shouting, “Tear down this temple, and I’ll rebuild it in three days!"

It seems disingenuous to call Jesus' actions a protest. That has so many connotations in our minds concerning the 60's and the current Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements that to call Jesus' outburst a protest seems to me an attempt at equating him with social justice movements in general. I'll point out that Jesus' mission was of a single purpose, which he addressed right from the get go: "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt 4:17) Christ came to call sinners to repentance and to die for that sin on the cross. Even if we could equate Jesus with social justice causes, which in many cases I don't think you can, that was secondary to his mission. What also strikes me as a mis-characterization is the authors' assertion that Jesus releases the animals. Go read it yourself (Matt 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-47); it doesn't say that. It also says nothing of the poor. The money-changers and animal salesmen could have been taking advantage of any socio-economic group, including, but not limited to, the poor. Finally, the author makes things very confusing when he describes the ending of the story. Jesus' quote about the temple is found in John's gospel (2:13-22), but according to this author, this is not the same story because the cleansing of the temple is found in "three of the four gospels". I don't know what to make of this. It's just confusing.

"In John’s gospel, there is a related passage where Jesus explains that “this temple” he was talking about was his own body. He foretells that he will be killed by the Jewish authorities, then rise from the dead three days later. Meaning, everything that formally took place in the temple would soon be available in Jesus himself.

So what happened in the temple? Well, a lot.
- forgiveness of sins through sacrifice

- healing of the sick

- worship

- prayers 

- and most importantly: getting close as one could possibly get to the presence of God."

Again, the author makes things very confusing by saying that the John quote is in "a related passage". It's in the one he quoted from above about tearing down the temple. It's the same story! I don't know what's going on here. I agree with him somewhat about what took place in the temple. The items listed were found in the temple, which would now be found in Jesus. Though, it should be noted that one of Stephen's major points in his speech before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7) is that God was always working outside of both the temple and the land of Israel even if the Jews didn't or refused to recognize it. Another objection is healing of the sick. This happened other places (for instance: 2 Kings 5 where Elisha heals Naaman by telling him to dip in the Jordan river 7 times). Healing didn't formally take place (whatever that even means) in the temple only.

"The temple was constructed in a series of concentric boxes. At the center of the temple was a room called the “The Inner Court.” This is where the presence of God dwelt. It was the most exclusive room in the ancient Jewish world. Only the high priest had access to this room, and even then only on certain days of the year. The next court was called “The Court Of The Jews.” Only Jewish males had access to this court. Next, was the “The Court Of Women.” Jewish Women, no matter how well they behaved were separated from God by two giant walls. The outer court, where the Jesus staged his protest was called “The Court Of Gentiles.” This is as close as non-Jewish people were allowed to get to the Divine Presence, whether male or female."

The inner court is called the Holy of Holies in the Bible. I'm not sure why the author is renaming it here. The high priest only had access to it one day of the year, not "certain days". Other than that I don't have a problem with this description.

"Humankind’s closeness to God in this culture was limited by one’s ethnicity, gender, and religious pedigree. The Gentiles were kept at a distance. They were the original group of people who “were welcome to attend,” but not “welcome to participate fully” in the sacramental aspects of the Jewish religion."

While it is true that the sacramental aspects of the Jewish religion were not fully open to everyone, it was widely understood in biblical Judaism that God would make a way for the Gentiles to be saved as well. Jews thought that only Jews had to do the temple rites. They would not have expected or required proselytes (converts to Judaism) to do these things. This is a half-truth that the author is asserting.

"What infuriated Jesus, then? Could it have been the walls that were constructed to keep people separated from one another and from God? Is it possible that he was outraged by all of the segregation taking place in the Name of God?"

What infuriated Jesus was the fact that the temple was holy because it was where God's presence dwelt. The answer to the next questions is, "No." I say this because Jesus wasn't concerned with walls at the temple separating people from God. He was worried about our own sin and evil separating us from God. The last question could be answered in the affirmative, but Jesus never said anything about segregation in the temple, so who knows?

"If you are a Christian, questions like these are still as relevant today for the “people of God” as they were back then. How would Jesus feel about the religious practices of Evangelical Christianity today, were he living among us?

- a church system that STILL qualifies people based on socio-economic status, race, political parties, and gender.

- a system that welcomes those who identify as LGBTQ until they decide that they want to baptized, take communion, or serve in a greater capacity

- a system that suppresses the ordination of women and their God given gifts to serve in Christian leadership

- a system that elevates the pulpit to the stature of The Inner Court."

I'll answer each bullet in turn.
-Does the church do this? Socio-economic status and political parties are not taken into account in any church I've ever been in. Race is tricky. Churches in America are self-segregated. Blacks tend to go to church with blacks while whites go with whites. I don't know why this happens, but it isn't because "white churches" have signs that say "blacks not welcome" or vice-versa. It's just a happenstance of the society we live in. Gender is assigned by God, we can't pick our own gender. Feelings don't determine gender. If he is talking about women as pastors, I'll address that below.
-I think there is a typo in the second bullet. I think it should say "a system that DOESN'T welcome"... We should welcome those who identify as LGBTQ, while also speaking the truth in love by telling them that their lifestyle is sinful and it is their own actions that separate them from God. And now, before someone says "Hey, everyone in church is a sinner, even Christians!" (whoops, too late!). Yes, everyone is a sinner, but not everyone is living in open rebellion to God without repenting. That is the issue. Read 1 John 1:5-10. Both those who proclaim to be Christian, yet "walk in darkness", and those who say they never sin are not of God. If they are not of God, they shouldn't be baptized, take communion, or serve in a greater capacity.
-If you ascribe to Christian complementarianism, you think that women and men have complementary roles given straight from God. In this structure, the man is head of the wife, the leader of both the household and the leadership of the Church. Is this suppression of the ordination of women? If you want to say it that way, yes, it is. But, it's straight from the Bible and therefore, from God. He has to make an argument as to why the historic reading and understanding of the Bible is not correct.
-No church I've ever been in has asserted that the pastorate is the only place where God is at and that everyone must hang on every word or teaching that comes from that leadership. This is just an absurd accusation.

"We are proud to call ourselves Progressive Evangelicals because we do not support this kind of system... and we don’t think that God does either. Were Jesus in some of our churches today, he’d likely be turning over communion tables, dashing offering plates into pieces, baptizing the marginalized, and performing ordination ceremonies for women."

It is ironic to me that they don't want the church qualifying people by political party, but then they clearly identify themselves with a political party. Progressives are squarely in the Democratic party. The "system" they don't support is a cariacture of what Evangelical Christianity actually is. I don't know if Jesus would break stuff in churches. He probably would be upset with some of them though, just as he was with some in the book of Revelation (chs. 2-3). If by marginalized, the author means those living in open sin and rebellion to God, then, no, I disagree 100%. As far as women pastors, I don't think that women can be in leadership positions in the Church based on my reading of scripture, so I don't think Jesus would ordain women. Again, he has to make a case for eagalitarianism rather than complain about "suppression" of women. There are good Christians that make that case. I, and many others, respectfully disagree.

"When we take an honest look at the life of Jesus, we begin to see that tearing down walls is more Christlike than building them. If there is anything solid we can plant our flag in, it is in the example that Jesus left behind for us to emulate- making the innermost rooms of God available to all people. If you are human, you are allowed access."

I agree, we should not build walls to keep people out of churches. However, telling people they are sinners and in need of a savior isn't building a wall, it's the truth. God has made himself available and nothing external the church could do could block the access he has granted. It is the individual who has kept themselves out of "the innermost rooms of God" by not repenting and turning away from sin and towards the only way to the Father, Jesus Christ.

"We long to be Christians that are known for this message about Jesus. The word, “evangelical” literally means “good news.” If the message of our faith doesn’t read like good news to people, perhaps we aren’t evangelical at all. Indeed, we may be something else. Selah."

Again, sin is the issue. We can't ignore people's sin. Jesus called everyone to repentance at the start of his ministry. The good news of Christ doesn't seem that important when there is no bad news (our sin) accompanying it. That is what this author doesn't understand.

Gospel Privilege

Something that I have heard and read a few times, mainly from proponents of social justice gospels, skeptics, and liberal Christians, is that we, as Americans, are privileged in a way that is unfair to less Christianized or non-Christian countries and their countrymen. We live in a predominantly Christian nation where the Gospel is readily available in a grand array of different formats. There are Christian television and radio stations, a church on every corner, and even Christian bookstores that sell books, DVDs, and CD's that, in one way or another, talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are saturated with the Gospel message in all aspects of our lives. Even our politicians pander to the "evangelical vote" because of the perceived impact of faith-informed voters.
Contrast that picture with the one in say, a village in the deep rain forest of Brazil or somewhere like that. No television, no radio, no Christian bookstores, no pandering politicians claiming they love Jesus. It might not be unthinkable that some of our hypothetical villagers hear the Gospel one time their entire lives from a lone missionary or missionary couple. The perceived implication is that we have a much greater opportunity to come to know the Lord here in America and that ultimately, people are lost (non-Americans) without having heard the Gospel. How is that fair? How could God have set-up such an unfair world system? Why would He allow that to happen?
I would like to offer three points that perhaps, won't answer these accusative questions directly, but will cause everyone on both sides of this issue to pause and think more deeply about their own worldview; particularly if you claim to have a Biblical worldview centered around the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The first is that I converted to Christianity when I was 32 years old. I did not grow up in a Christian home and when I left home for the Marines I didn't go to any church or ascribe to any religion for the 13 years between my initial enlistment and my conversion. My wife grew up Christian and then wandered from the Lord until about 10 years ago. So for the first 5 (or so) years of our marriage, we lived a Godless life devoid of anything that anyone would call spiritual or religious. What's the point of this you ask? In all my years on Earth before I converted, I heard the Gospel twice. One of those was from my wife and one from my father-in-law and both of those were in the last 10 years. For 22 years, I knew exactly bupkis about the Gospel of Jesus Christ which Paul says is "as of first importance" (1 Cor. 15:3). I was never saturated with the Gospel even though I lived in America.
The next point deals with an implicit assumption in this line of reasoning. The assumption is that people go to hell because they haven't heard of Jesus. This assumption also has its own assumption as well; that everybody is generally good and would go to heaven if they just hear of Jesus. Both of these are wrong. No one goes to hell because they haven't heard of Jesus. We all are or were deservedly on the road to hell because we sin and God's justice must be satiated. The other part of this is found in Romans 1-3. Specifically, 1:18-32 and 3:10-23 that says everyone is guilty and even though we know God exists, we ignore that reality and don't follow or seek Him. Without the "bad news" of our inherent and guilty sinfulness, the good news doesn't make any sense. Jesus just becomes some arbitrary marker that must be reached for no apparent reason for entry to heaven instead of the understanding that we all are dying of a disease of which Jesus is the only cure. Why is Jesus the only cure? Because God poured His wrath out on Him on the cross (Isa. 52:13-53:12; especially 53:10-12) in order to "make many to be accounted righteous" (53:11). Now we can ask: Is it fair that God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ came and lived among men in order to live a sinless life and sacrifice Himself willingly that we might have eternal life even though we were, for instance, trying to live a good life to get to heaven or suppressing the truth of God's existence so we could remain the lord of our own lives? The reality of this line of thought is that it is incredibly shallow and human-centered when the very foundational message of the Bible is absolutely God-centered.
The final point I have is just a thought exercise that I conjured up when discussing this topic with both my wife and a friend of mine at separate times. We had been discussing these very questions in an attempt to parse out some serious Christian answers that deal with the mechanics of how God accomplishes all his saving purposes with people who may only hear the Gospel once in their lifetime. For the sake of argument, I will grant that Americans are saturated with the Gospel message contrary to my first point above. Paul says in Acts 17:26-27 that God has "determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him." God has personally put every one of us in both the time and place where He knew that we had the best chance to find him. That is a comforting thought. Since God has done this, we can presume that He knows our personality and sensitiveness to Him better than we do. If you have been around followers of Christ for any length of time you know that some people are just naturally more sensitive to God's presence and moving than others. Even non-believers can be incredibly sensitive to God though they do not really know Him (Albert Camus in his book The Fall for instance). With this in mind, maybe we as Americans are not the privileged ones. Maybe we needed to hear the Gospel from every possible medium, repeatedly, in order to find our way to God. Maybe we are weak and totally insensitive to God. Since God knows everything, He knew that fact about all of us and knew that our weakness needed a profoundly Gospel swamped "allotted period" and "dwelling place" so we might succumb to His grace. And on the other hand, maybe it is the distant villager who really has the privilege. Maybe he is the one who is sensitive to God and thus, the stronger one compared with an average American. He only needed to hear the Gospel once in his life in order for it pierce him to the soul and change his life forever. Maybe he only needed to hear the only name that can save, the name above all names, Jesus Christ, once, before the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual barriers in his being came crashing down and he embraced what he knew had been missing from his life for as long as he could remember. I hope that this will give you something to think about when you consider the (apparent) problem that deals with: What about those who have never heard?

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 8

This is the conclusion to our argument for Christian theism. In it, steps 9-12 are discussed. They are: Therefore, Jesus is God. Whatever Jesus, who is God, says is true. Jesus claimed that the Bible is the Word of God. Therefore, the Bible is the Word of God and anything oppossed to it is false.

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 7

In this lesson we cover step 8, which is Jesus' claim to be God was miraculously confirmed by fulfilled prophecy and his resurrection.

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 6

This weeks lesson is on steps 6 and 7 which are: the New Testament is historically reliable and the New Testament says Jesus claimed to be God.

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 5

We are going to cover steps 4&5 in this lesson. Step 4 is: If God exists, then miracles are possible. An all-powerful God who created and is sustaining the universe can certainly do miracles. Unwarranted skepticism concerning miracles still exists however. How do we combat this? Dr. Craig S. Keener will demonstrate the fallaciousness of the common anti-miracle arguments and give an abundance of examples of documented miracles in the present time.

Step 5 then discusses what God can do with miracles. Miracles can be used to confirm a message from God. This is evidenced in the Bible in many places.

Moses is given signs to perform to show the Israelites and Pharaoh God had sent him. (Exodus 4:1-9)
Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal by a sign from God so that Israel will turn back to Him. (1 Kings 18:36-39)
Jesus told John the Baptist to look at the signs He was doing to demonstrate that He was the messiah. (Matthew 11:2-6)
Jesus also told the Pharisees they would be given one sign; the sign of Jonah (His resurrection) to prove who He was. (Matthew 16:1-4)

Next week we move on to steps 6 (The New Testament is historically reliable.) and 7 (The New Testament says that Jesus claimed to be God.).

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 4

This week we cover the moral argument for God's existence. This is the second part of step 3: it is true that the theistic God exists.

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 3

This lesson is about the beginning of the universe. It covers step 3: it is true that the theistic God exists. You can find a more in depth treatment of the kalam cosmological argument here.

ENJOY!

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 2

This lesson is about truth and challenges to our ability to know truth.

Wednesday Night Apologetics: Lesson 1

Hey everyone! I have had some people express interest in hearing these lessons in some different ways than just on Wednesday night at Trinity Worship Center. Some people work with kids or youth or other places and can't make it; some people are in other classes, but still want to get this information; and still others are in my class and have told me they have trouble taking notes and keeping up with me (for that I apologize). I have decided to record my lectures over the powerpoint presentation that goes with it. That way, you can listen at your leisure and pause it wherever you need to. If you still have questions, please leave a comment or track me down at church. I am always happy to discuss God in the context of apologetics and theology. Below you'll find all the references that I have used in putting this class together. Enjoy!

Reference List for Christianity: True or False?

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig

            Chapter 6 Theories of Truth and Postmodernism

            Chapter 23 The Existence of God (1)

            Chapter 24 The Existence of God (2)

Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air by Francis J. Beckwith and Greg Koukl

            Chapter 3 Three Kinds of Relativism

            Chapter 4 Culture as Morality

            Chapter 5 Culture Defining Morality

            Chapter 6 Moral Common Sense

            Chapter 7 Relativism’s Seven Fatal Flaws

Tactics by Greg Koukl

Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig

            Chapter 3 The Existence of God (1)

            Chapter 4 The Existence of God (2)

Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts by Craig Keener

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona

The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce

Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

            Chapter 26 The Person of Christ

12 Steps to Christian Theism: Step 3, Metaphysical Realism

In our quest to show that God exists and He has shown Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, we are on step 3, which is: it is true that the theistic God exists. We have discussed both the kalam cosmological argument which argues for a creator from the beginning of the universe and the argument from contingency which argues for a necessary being sustaining the contingent universe. Now we will turn our attention to Thomas Aquinas' argument from metaphysical realism. In order to be clear and concise due to the difficulty of this argument, I'm going to quote directly from Frank Turek and Norman Geisler's booklet entitled; What if Christianity is really true? (1) This is a condensed version of their book; I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist where they lay out the 12 step argument that we are in the midst of. So, none of the following are my own words.

"By observing physical reality we can reason from effect to cause and see that even the most mundane object we encounter can lead us to the existence of God. "There is nowhere the unbeliever can hide in all reality where he is not standing on some ground that can be shown to point to its Creator." (2)
From the cosmological argument, to the design argument, to the argument from objective morality, there are many popular lines of thinking, both scientific and philosophical, showing that theism is true; that is, that there exists a God who is separate from yet active in His creation. We will look at one argument, by 13th century thinker Thomas Aquinas, built upon metaphysical realism.
The argument begins, some thing, a tree for example, undeniably exists. Essence is what a thing is, and whatever is true of a tree is because of its essence or not. For instance, to be a tree is to grow roots, sprout leaves, etc., not to be in a particular location such as a backyard. We must ask, is existence part of what it means to be a tree? The answer is no. Even if all trees ceased to exist we would still know what a tree is because its' essence and existence are distinct. For example, you can know what a unicorn is even though it does not actually exist. From where, then, does existence come? The tree either causes itself to exist, exists necessarily, or is being caused to exist by something else. Self-causation is a contradiction and thus false. Trees go from potentially existing to actually existing and thus do not exist necessarily. Therefore, the tree is being caused to exist.
Whatever is causing the tree to exist is either receiving its existence from another or it necessarily exists by virtue of its essence. Like an infinite chain of train cars with no engine, a chain of existence-receiving causes cannot account for its own existence. Hence, there must exist an uncaused cause, who's essence simply is existence, causing all other things. As Being itself, its essence and existence are identical such that it is unlimited Being while everything else only has being. Aquinas says, this everyone knows to be God. (3)"

And now I'm back. God bless.

Update: Since I started teaching the 12 steps at my church, I posted the rest of this series from those lessons. You can start here. There are 8 total lessons that cover all the steps.

Notes
1. follow the link, step 3
2. Richard Howe, "It's worse than I thought", Quodlibetal Blog: Musings from Anywhere by Dr. Richard G. Howe. http://quodlibetalblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/its-worse-than-i-thought/.
3. Edward Feser, Aquinas (Beginner's Guides) (Kindle locations 573-577). Oneworld publications (academic). Kindle edition.

12 Steps to Christian Theism: Step 3, The Argument from Contingency

So far, we have covered the first 2 steps: truth about reality is knowable and the opposite of true is false in our trek to Christian theism. Knowing that there is such a thing as truth allows us to then evaluate truth claims made by, for instance: a religion, a professor, a scientist, or a philosopher. Either the claims made by individuals such as these are true or they are false. In our process, step 3 states that it is true that the theistic God exists. This consists of making arguments for the existence of a monotheistic God that would fit the bill for Judaism, Christianity, Islam or Deism. The first argument offered was the kalam cosmological argument which argues for a universe with a beginning and thus, a beginner of that universe. In this installment we are going to take a look at the argument from contingency from the famed German, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz asked: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"  When related to the universe, the syllogism goes like this:

1. Every existing thing has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe is an existing thing.
4. Therefore the explanation of the existence of the universe is God.

This is a philosophical argument that posits the universe is a contingent entity that needs to be continually sustained by a necessary being in order for it to exist. Let's unpack this argument and see where it gets us.

Working backward, we can see that premise 3 is most certainly true. The universe is a thing and this thing does exist. Unless you want to argue that we are in some type of Matrix scenario, which would be unfalsifiable, we can agree that premise 3 is true. Premise 1 is a bit more difficult. I think we can agree on the first part no matter what worldview you currently adhere to. Existing things need explanations. It's the second part that is more tricky. A necessary being exists of its own nature and has no external cause of its existence, while a contingent being is accounted for by causal factors outside itself. Liebniz used his principle of sufficient reason to formulate premise 1. This principle states: "no fact can be real or existent, no statement true, unless there be a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise." Many philosophers and cosmologists would posit that the universe is a brute fact without explanation. Many religious folks would posit the same about God. But we want to be better informed and think through this more thoroughly. Liebniz argued that there must be a metaphysically necessary being (a being in which it is impossible for it not to exist) that is the sufficient reason for itself as well as for the existence of every contingent thing. The universe being up for discussion right now, we want to posit that it is contingent, i.e. it relies on something else for its existence. But does it, making the universe contingent?

The universe is contingent and we can see this in a few ways. First of all we have a strong intuition that the universe is contingent and not the metaphysically necessary entity. It is easy to conceive of a universe in which all the fundamental particles of the universe are different or a universe in which there are no concrete objects, only abstract ones. Both of these scenarios seem reasonable. We could also envision universes that have different fundamental laws of nature; something that scientists deal with theoretically all the time. If the universe could have been another way, formulated of different parts or laws or without certain objects that are in the known world, it is contingent. Now that we know the universe is contingent and has an explanation of its existence, what is that explanation? In premise 2 we posit that it is God that is the metaphysically necessary being that sustains everything else. But why? Well, the universe consists of matter, space, time, and energy. So, our metaphysically necessary being cannot consist of those things or, as we have seen, it would be contingent as well. What being do we know of that does not consist of matter, is nonspatial, and atemporal? Either abstract objects or God. Since we learned in the kalam argument that abstract objects do not stand in causal relations to other objects it can't be them, even if they are metaphysically necessary, like some philosophers think about numbers. They simply cannot cause anything. That leaves us with God. I will refer you to the kalam argument post, the conclusion, to discuss the attributes that we can gather from this line of thought for the metaphysically necessary being. Spoiler alert, any religion that posits a deity of any sort that is part of this universe and not transcendent to it is false based on this argument because it would be contingent. This removes from the realm of possibility that it could be: any pagan idol gods, the gods of Hinduism, the god of Mormonism, some sects of Buddhism that have a god, most New Age/Occult worldviews with a god and yes, the flying spaghetti monster. In conclusion, I will leave you with some paraphrased words from William Lane Craig: If you don't want to call the metaphysically necessary being God, you may simply call him the extremely powerful, uncaused, necessarily existing, non-contingent, non-physical, immaterial, eternal being who created the entire universe and everything in it.

Next time we will discuss Thomas Aquinas' cosmological argument which is much more philosophically dense than Leibniz's.