The UmBlog

I have the same excuses for not getting as much reading done as yesterday, time change and new puppy. I listened to most of today's reading. It's pretty familiar territory to this guy. Isaiah 53 is one of the major go-to passages for Jesus' followers to find a prophecy about him centuries before his birth. As I listened to it again, I realized that we don't always take everything literally. It strikes me as somewhat arbitrary when we take things literally and when we don't. None of this diminishes how amazing this prophecy is, but it reflects how not hard and fast are the rules of conservative Bible interpretation. Isaiah 53 :1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. jpu- The Gospel writers had very little to say about Jesus...

I picked up my first N.T. Wright book, Simply Jesus , because it was on sale for Kindle, just $2. He has stirred up controversy in some circles, but in this book, I see no reason why any conservative evangelical would be threatened by his ideas; unless you are threatened by ideas that are no identical to your own. The irony of the book title, as Wright explains, is Jesus is not simple. He uses the metaphor of the Perfect Storm throughout the book. The three forces of "nature" Jesus wades into are imperial Rome, apocalyptic Israel, and a fresh move of God. Wright strives to find a third way between those who believe Jesus was a really good man who left a good example and those who believe Jesus is a lifeguard trying to pluck people out of a river heading toward a deadly waterfall. His assertion is that Jesus came to install a new kingdom, God's kingdom, that succeeds by living out his teachings, such as the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule. Jesus is not simple becaus...

I picked this up for my Kindle when it was free for a day. It's only two bucks and change now , and this book is worth so much more. It is so much better to read apologetics from a correspondence between an honest skeptic and a humble apologist. This is narrative instead of academic. Boyd knows a great deal, he studied theology at Princeton and Yale, but he is not ashamed to admit what he doesn't know, his own struggles with doubt, his own mistakes in faith, or the limits of what can be claimed on behalf of Jesus and the Bible. Boyd is not a fundamentalist which enables him to write about Jesus much more winsomely and not as a hard dogmatist. He acknowledges the diversity within Christendom, and explains why he makes the choices within it without condemning those who have chosen otherwise. He also talks about the fringe groups and what makes them fringy. In fact, he started his Christian journey in one of them, oneness pentecostalism . He wants his skeptical dad...

I re-read an old book, among many, over the Christmas break, Cover via Amazon God in the Pits by Mark A. Ritchie . I highly recommend it. The section I want to transcribe here is the same argument I made a year ago , to start off 2011 at the UmBlog. No one dies for a their own lie. Nor do ten guys from many strata of society choose death under torture in many different societies maintaining they witnessed that Jesus rose from the dead. Ritchie writes from the commodities trading pit where fellow workers were busted for inside trading , among other things. First he gives credit to Chuck Colson's experience and observations. Watergate conspirator Charles Colson was the first to notice this principle of the pressurized conspirator. In his book Loving God , colson observed that even with all the power of the presidential office to be preserved, his small band of loyal followers of the president could not contain the Watergate coverup for more than three weeks. As the enemies of th...

Charles is very direct in the preface to his new book, The Jesus Inquest , I saw that a common method of Christian argument was to say: "Professor Smith thinks that the Christians are correct, and he has an enormous brain and lots of degrees." That's the method of Lee Strobel uses, and I'm afraid it's not impressive...You don't decide the truth of propositions by comparing the brain weights of people who believe them with the brain weights of the people who don't. p.x I agree with his premise, but I'm not sure it was necessary to throw Strobel under the bus. It's Strobel's personal story of coming to Christ, who is Foster to criticize it? I think his barb might better apply to McDowell 's book, Evidence that demands a verdict , which is a very large outline in book form with abudnant quotes from everyone. But, again, McDowell is writing for a younger audience. Foster is writing for a more demanding audience. When he isn't writing apol...

With a theologically liberal friend on my Facebook page. You only get my side. It's a discussion about the exclusive way to God through Jesus Christ alone. Stuff gets lost forever if it's on Facebook, so I wanted to save it here. Here it is. Jesus taught "repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 4:17. He also taught that unless people repent they will perish, Luke 13:3. More on repentance here . He also taught us to believe in him, the one God sent, Luke 6:29. Jesus makes many exclusive claims about himself, and John's gospel really focuses on these, John 5:24"I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life." A little later on he says 40"Yet you refuse to come to me so that I can give you this eternal life." So my goal is to persuade as many people as I can that Jesus alone will give them ete...

I'm finishing up Ravi Zacharias 's book on apologetics, Beyond Opinion , and the last chapter, The church's role in apologetics and the development of the mind , is written by himself. He is the editor of the book, but also contributes a couple chapters, this one and one on evil. I will set up his position on discrimination by quoting his take on truth. You see, truth by definition is exclusive. If truth were all-inclusive, nothing would be false. And if nothing were false, what would be the meaning of true? Furthermore, if nothing were false, would it be true to say that everything is false? It quickly becomes evident that nonsense would follow. p. 314 If I tell you something is true, then I am also telling you something is not true. If I tell you that the apple is red, then I am also telling you it is not blue. This plays out in a conversation he had with a reporter. I had just finished lecturing at a university. She [the reporter - jpu] had very graciously stayed throu...

The melody is nice, the words are worshipful but of Joseph Smith not Jesus Christ. (see video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6mz5iCcbk if you can't see it in feed) Here are the lyrics. Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah! Jesus annointed that Prophet and Seer. Blessed to open the last dispensation, Kings shall extol him, and nations revere. Chorus Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven! Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain. Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren; Death cannot conquer the hero again. Praise to his mem'ry, he died as a martyr; Honored and blest be his ever great name! Long shall his blood, which was shed by assasins, Plead unto heav'n while the earth lauds his fame. Chorus Great is his glory and endless his priesthood. Ever and ever the keys he will hold. Faithful and true he will enter his kingdom, Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old. Chorus Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven; Earth must atone for the blood o...

A friend of mine likes to share on Facebook videos of the Christian hair metal we used to listen to 20 years ago. I think all hair metal videos are embarrassing these days but the more egregious part is how much they emulated/imitated/ripped off the sound of secular bands. He posted one video of Iron Maiden 's and that of another Christian band that sounded just like them, showing the obvious rip-off. I responded that I wanted the Maiden sound without the devil worshiping of the other guys. It turns out, they didn't do any devil worshiping. But I didn't find this out for years. I just believed the information fed to me by traveling church authorities who wrote books and gave lectures and played albums backwards to convince kids like me, and our parents, that the rock and roll industry was conspiring with Satan to bring us to hell. Certainly, many bands do sing mostly about the pleasures of the carnal life, but that's not the same as advocating devil worship. And I'...

John Cleese, in this video, explains why I believe in God. HT: WWWtW

Can I keep this short? I'll try. The world around us should force us to ask "why?" over and over again. Why is this beautiful? Why is that ugly? Why does most of the world agree about these observations? Why is this right? Why is that wrong? Why does most of the world agree about these judgments? Why do awful things happen? Why do good things happen? Why am I here? How did I get to exist on this privileged planet ? Why do I have a mind ? Why am I different than animals? Why do I feel such extreme highs and lows? These questions then lead us to ask, who can answer these questions? The problem is most of these questions are not materialistic. Answers can't be found in science, which can only attempt to explain material patterns. Science can't explain why there is order in our world instead of chaos either. Hence, we look to those who claim to have answers to these non-material questions. But there is an industry of charlatans. A sucker is born every minute and if t...

I think Hannegraf’s latest book, Christianity in Crisis, 21st Century , could have been half the length and twice as good. As he mentions in the preface, Twenty years ago, I began working on a book…., titled Christianity in Crisis, [that] unmasked the fatal flaws of a movement that threatens to undermine the very foundation of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.” (p. ix). I did not read that particular book, previously written, yet as I looked at the endnotes, being the compulsive reader that I am, I couldn’t help but notice the dearth of 21st century quotes. I felt this should have been the 10 year update, not the 20th. Most of the recent quotes come in the latter half of the book, which is why I think this book could have been half as long. I don’t disagree with him that many of these preachers focus themselves and their listeners on rewards today instead of in heaven. In fact, he won’t say it, but makes it obvious that many of these ministers of the gospel serve m...

A cool Google mash up by my friend Anton, ApologeticsSearch.com . It currently searches 13 apologetic sites with more coming.

Came across a new site today called SmithBusters . Lots of information here. I have plenty of other links and stories on Mormonism  and apologetics .

Keith has an update on his second meeting with the LDS boys. Gems include... They agreed with us that the Bible is still applicable, but still insisted that someone needs to get current messages from God so that we will know how to live better lives. I asked, “OK, then can you give us some examples of one of your prophets giving us current information that we need that isn’t already found in the Bible?” Elder J. was stunned into silence and looked at Elder T. They both looked at each other and really didn’t know what to say. Finally Elder J. brought up the Word of Wisdom and said that Joseph Smith had a new revelation about a health code. I didn’t want to reveal what I knew about the Word of Wisdom, but that “revelation” was given in 1833. Hmm… 174 years is not exactly what I would call, “current.” I just said, “Joseph Smith? That was a long time ago. I’d like to hear some examples of one of your prophets giving some important information that you have heard personally and needed to k...

I don't "bookmark" sites anymore. Usually I will add their feed, unless they are old school. This site is old school but worth returning to at some point, Contend for the Faith . I appreciated the book report on Sailhamer's Genesis Unbound which presents historical creationism.

Keith Walker is a missionary to those trapped in cults. He loves it when they come to his door. Here is an excerpt from a great report . Although we spoke about many other things, there was another important issue that I want to discuss here. Elder J. paraphrased numerous verses in both the Bible and Book of Mormon. One of them was Matthew 7:20 - Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. The context is speaking of how to identify false prophets, but rarely does a Mormon know that. Elder J. said that we could determine the truth of things by examining it's fruit. In this case he said that we could examine Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He then transitioned into telling us to pray about the Book of Mormon to find out if it is true. Prior to this discussion, I never had thought about these two ideas as a contrast. I asked, "If we are to test the truthfulness of a religion or person by examining their fruit, why are we told to pray about the Book of Mormon?" Elde...

A LINGUIST LOOKS AT MORMONISM Notes on linguistics problems in Mormonism By Richard Packham .....During my teaching career of thirty-five years I used comparative linguistic techniques in the classroom. I have found that my knowledge and experience with the phenomena of language give me a somewhat unusual perspective on Mormonism. This article gathers together my own observations as well as comments of others. Some of these problems are well-known, but some of them I have never seen discussed before. So far as I am aware, nowhere else has Mormonism been critiqued solely from a linguistic point of view, gathering together all of the linguistic problems in one place...

A group against the defamation of Hindus finds Bible Study Lessons from Antioch, Ill., The Christian Broadcasting Network, Christian Answers of Gilbert, Ariz., Mission Frontiers of Pasadena, Calif., and many others, however, were identified by the Hindu foundation as Internet "hate" sources. "This is the first of what the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) hopes will be an annual report on anti-Hindu hatred found on the Internet," said the report, which was from a group that provides "a voice for the 2 million strong Hindu American community." "Hate is an ugly thing, and its ugliness is well illustrated in its various manifestations on the Internet, including those detailed in this report," wrote Jeffery Long, of Elizabethtown College, in the forward. their solution in India is simply to riot against Christians or force reconversions which is much better than criticizing others on web pages, or not .

from the Logos blog a link to the Gospel Driven Life on respectful dialog in-house... One does not have to hang out in the blogosphere for very long to find heated debates and critiques of this and that -- emergent, charismania, reformed, truly reformed, seeker, etc. This is nothing new in church history and I, for one, do not think the church today is any worse or better condition than it ever has been. Redeemed sinners have always been redeemed sinners. And redeemed sinners often treat enemies as friends and friends as enemies. But there is something unusual afoot. One of the amazing works of God in our day is that leaders are uniting across barriers formerly uncrossable. They are uniting around the Gospel. And I think here is the place to define and to determine who is for Christ and who is against him. It was called the "rule of faith" by Tertullian. So I wanted to offer a post that gave some questions that are definitive of the Gospel -- ...