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Gospel

The Truth About Christianity

Jesus Ruined My LIfe is a great little post about the meaning of being a Christian.

Everyone is all for the pop-cultured American (small ‘c’) christianity. Instead of lifting Jesus up as our glorious Savior, he’s a used rung on the ladder of success to step on so those who step on him can be seen from a farther distance.

Albert Camus nails it when he wrote in his novel, “People naturally tried to get some help from his death. After all, it was a stroke of genius to tell us: ‘You’re not a very pretty sight, that’s certain! Well, we won’t go into the details! We’ll just liquidate it all at once, on the cross!’ But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long. Too many people decided to do without generosity in order to practice charity.” ~The Fall, p.114. “We long to be immortal. We are too much in love with ourselves not to want the precious object of our love never to disappear.”

Do we want a relationship with God or simply the assets He provides? We often oscillate between being both prodigal sons (Luke 15:11-32). They both want the Father’s assets at the expense of a relationship with the Father. The tale of the Prodigal Sons describes American christianity.

Michael Horton wrote, “I would argue that the reason so many unbelievers can sit comfortably in our churches and even call themselves born-again Christians is that we give them very little to deny. The offensive message of the cross has been replaced with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” with the cross tucked somewhere underneath it.”

This American christianity is a lie of the Devil. We must be watchful. Satan comes in like an angel of light and departs with a fiendish cackle over carcasses strewn in the wilderness – 1 Corinthians 10:5.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“As a poor wicked sinner, I cannot but indulge the hope that God will save me from eternal death, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ~John Cruver –1862.

God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself.

Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. ~T. F. Torrance, “The Mediation of Christ”, 94

That is the truth about Christianity.

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Christianity Gospel Religion Skepticism Videos

Grill a Christian

Todd Friel, of Wretched Radio, went to a public college and discussed Christianity with a group.

Grill a Christian (Part 1)

Grill a Christian (Part 2)

Grill a Christian (Part 3)

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Christianity Religion Skepticism Videos

Doubting Dawkins

Atheism has made a huge leap into the public mind. It seems that, ever since 9-11, a new breed of Atheism has come of age. One poem in particular about being an Atheist produces a few questions in my mind:

If you are hungry, I will offer food.
If you are thirsty, I will offer water.
If you are cold, I will offer warmth.
If you are in need, ask and I will give.
If you are in trouble, ask and I will help.

I do not do these things in the hopes of being rewarded, or out of fear of being punished.
I do these things because I know them to be right.
I set my own standards and I alone enforce them.
I am an Atheist

How does an Atheist “know them to be right”? What is right? wrong?

Who is the arbitrator of what is right? The individual person? Society?

What if one society sees everyone else not like them as inferior and decides to pursue all other societies’ destruction? It’s right in one society’s eyes but not others.

What if one society decides to take in and nurture all helpless people, while another decides to end the lives of all the helpless? What makes one society virtuous while another horrendous?

What if a society, at one point in time, pursues justice for all, yet within 1 to 3 generations becomes corrupt and pursues self-interest alone and throws justice out in the street?

What constitutes virtue? horrendous action? justice? injustice? Who gets to define these ideals and why should I follow those ideals?

This way of thinking promotes people doing what is right in their own eyes.

If we are to pursue the full extent of Atheism, then we must follow the natural conclusion provided in the video below.

What hope is there? There is no hope. There is no reason for me to follow any laws or guidelines of society. Because there is no God, I will not be judged by God, even though I will be judged by society, and even then, society’s perception of good will change. And if that is the extent of my judgement, so what? And who cares?

Check the site out: http://www.doubtingdawkins.com/.

Categories
Christianity Gospel

Three Reasons Why I Am A Christian

Why Am I A Christian? I am sure many people out there question why anyone would be a Christian. “That’s just crazy stuff!” However, there are very real reasons why people are Christians.

The very real and typical answer is by the Grace of God. Period. See Ephesians 2:8-9.

But there are other reasons which are an outflow of God’s Grace in our lives.

Christianity’s Claim: Research the facts for yourself.

The Bible is a collection of over 60 books of different genres (history, poetry, wisdom, apocalyptic, etc…), spanning over 1,500 years, written by over 40 authors including shepherds and kings, fishermen and doctors, soldiers and lawyers. Compare that with any other religious book.

Further, there are over 5600 Greek manuscripts in existence which far outweigh the number of manuscripts to other ancient writings. Think Plato, Aristotle, Homer (Illiad), and others (See this chart for details).

Skeptics do not see this as definitive enough, however, “if the critics of the Bible dismiss the New Testament as reliable information, then they must also dismiss the reliability of the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Homer, and the other authors.” It’s almost as if skeptics dismiss the Bible without looking into the evidence.

The Bible may look like it has contradictions and other issues on the surface, but the Bible has a self-consistency that surpasses other religious books. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure.

If you are skeptical of these claims, go research it out yourself before you deny its viability of truth.

Christianity’s Claim: The Eyewitnesses are telling truth

“All Christianity asks of men on this subject, is that they would be consistent with themselves; that they would treat the evidence of other things; and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses, as they deal with their fellow men, when testifying to human affairs and actions, in human tribunals,” writes Simon Greenleaf, one of the founders of Harvard Law School. “Let the witnesses be compared with themselves, with each other, and with surrounding facts and circumstances; and let their testimony be sifted, as if were given in a court of justice, on the side of the adverse party, the witness being subjected to a rigorous cross-examination.

“The writers of the Biblical accounts invited critical analysis, as revealed in 1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1; and Revelation 2:2. They wanted people to believe their testimony was true. It was imperative they provided accurate, objective and truthful information, because lives were at stake. Not just their lives, but the lives of those who received their message.

When the authors of Scripture describe events, they use specificity. In other words, only when real events are described can the details be verified and consistent. There were eyewitnesses of events such as feeding of the 5,000, 500 eyewitnesses of Jesus appearance after his death, not to mention Paul’s first hand experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus, as well as, James, Jude, John, and many many others. The authors mention all of these people as if to say, “Don’t believe me? Go talk with these first-hand witnesses yourself.” Many eyewitness were still alive when people received the letters and documents of Scripture.

“There were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the First Century that contest the New Testament texts.”

For further reading and research, check out: http://www.tektonics.org/guest/truthfulness.htm
I also recommend CARM: http://carm.org/

Categories
Christianity Religion

With so many religions, is there one that possesses all truth?

Some say there are many paths to Heaven – so long as you pick a path, we are all going to Heaven.

One reason provided by some about why many religions exist is, each religion possesses a part of the truth – and since no single religion can possess all truth, we have many religions.  Further, it is arrogant for one religion to claim it has all truth.

This idea has been conveyed by a story of some blind men and an elephant.

As Wikipedia summarizes: In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement.

In John Godfrey Saxe’s version (1816–1887), one man falls against the side of the elephant and proclaims the elephant is a wall.  Another leans on the tusk and proclaims an elephant is a spear.  Another touches the trunk and proclaims the elephant is a snake.  Another touches the knee and proclaims the elephant is a tree.  Another touches the ear and proclaims the elephant is a fan.  And the last one grabs the tail and proclaims the elephant is a rope.

The point of the story is that while each blind man is proclaiming what they believe to be is an absolute truth, in fact all of their truths are just relative based on their experience of the elephant.  No one has the Truth, in its entirety.  This story is often used to critique those who proclaim some knowledge of absolute truth – most commonly those with a monotheistic religious world view.  It is intended to teach us how knowledge and truth is in fact relative.

Here is Lesslie Newbigin’s response:

In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant
 the real point of the story is constantly overlooked.  The story is told from the point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of part of it.  The story is constantly told in order to neutralize the affirmations of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth.  But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite.  If the king were also blind, there would be no story.  What this means then is that there is an appearance of humility and a protestation that the truth is much greater than anyone of us can grasp.  But if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth, it is in fact an arrogant claim with the kind of knowledge which is superior that you have just said, no religion has.

As Tim Keller further clarifies:

To say, I don’t know which religion is true is an act of humility.  To say, none of the religions have truth, no one can be sure there’s a god is actually to assume you have the kind of knowledge, you just said no other person, no other religion has.  How dare you?  See, it’s a kind of arrogant thing to say nobody can know the truth because it’s a universal truth claim.  To say, ‘Nobody can make universal truth claims.’  That is a universal truth claim.  ‘Nobody can see the whole truth.’  You couldn’t know that unless you think you see the whole truth.  And, therefore, you’re doing the very thing you say religious people shouldn’t do.

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Gospel Videos

How Is the Gospel Underestimated?