Book Comment: The God You Thought You Knew

 

In his book, The God You Thought You Knew, Alex McFarland responds to ten common secular objections to Christianity.

Some of the objections discussed in this book include:

1.     Christianity is judgemental and intolerant.

2.     Evil and suffering exist and a real God would not allow that.

3.     Christianity is totally made up and not based on any facts.

4.     Modern science disproves Christianity.

5.     Religion is not for the educated.

6.     The whole thing is boring and a waste of my time.

7.     Since I do not like it, it cannot be true.

8.     The Bible is full of errors.

9.     Dead people cannot come back to life.

10.  A loving God would not send anyone to Hell.

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises to think for yourself.

Information you will need to search for this book: McFarland, Alex, The God You Thought You Knew. Exposing the 10 Biggest Myths About Christianity (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2015)

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Fairies Wear Boots

Fairies Wear Boots (1970) is a song by the rock music group, Black Sabbath, about a man who insists that you must believe that he saw “fairy boots” dancing with a dwarf. “You gotta believe me … I tell you no lies … I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes.”

The lead singer of this song, Ozzy Osbourne, says that he has no idea what the song is about since he wrote the lyrics during a night of hard drugs and drinking. The only reason he knows that he wrote the lyrics is that his friends told him that he did. 

Goin' home, late last night

Suddenly I got a fright

Yeah I looked through a window and surprised what I saw

A fairy with boots and dancin' with a dwarf,

All right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

Oh all right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

All right now!

So I went to the doctor

See what he could give me

He said Son, son, you've gone too far.

'Cause smokin' and trippin' is all that you do.

Fairies Wear Boots lyrics © T.R.O. INC.

In legal usage, eyewitness testimony is considered to be admissible evidence but it must be consistent with known facts, not fanciful, and the eyewitness must be examined carefully to ensure that the chance for intentional or even unintentional bias is minimal. Ancient Jewish practice insisted that eyewitness testimony must be provided by two men of unquestioned character before it could be believed.

Of course, some people will believe in almost anything (ghosts, visits by extraterrestrial beings, telepathy, fairy folk, etc.) just because someone adamantly insists that they “saw it with their own two eyes.”

Religious movements have sprung up around charismatic individuals. These movements seem to be primarily cults of personality, based primarily on the individuals themselves. The founders claim, with no verifiable proofs, to have seen visions (Edgar Cayce), or mysterious holy objects (Mormonism). Some claim to have met Ascended Masters who gave them messages for the world. There are at least twenty religions based on the UFO phenomenon. 

Christian belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is itself based on eyewitness testimony, but with a major qualitative difference. In the Bible, there are numerous reported post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, one to a group of over 500 people AND there is even an implied challenge to naysayers. If most of the 500 were still alive at the time of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, all anyone had to do was hunt them down and ask them what they saw.

"After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;"    1 Corinthians 15:6

My eye! My eye!

I have to apologize for being gone from this blog for two weeks. I had to have surgery on my right eye. I had an artificial lens implanted to replace one damaged by a cataract and also a Descemet's membrane transplant to repair the damage done to my cornea by Fuch’s Dystrophy. Once the right eye is healed, the same surgeries will be performed on my left eye. It really is amazing what we can now do. One hundred and fifty years ago the Fuch’s Dystrophy would have eventually rendered me blind. The first full corneal transplant was performed in 1905. The Descemet's Membrane transplants have only been performed for the last twenty five years. See a video of the surgeries here. 

Think about this though, We probably will eventually be able to create artificial eyes but we cannot create an eye,  We cannot create a butterfly.  We cannot create a galaxy. And we cannot raise a man from the dead. Only our  Lord can do these things.

Family Crosses

This last Sunday was Easter day. At the church which my son and his family attend, the families participated in a wonderful ceremony. The parents and their children built small crosses and wrapped them in burlap. Nails were placed in the cross at the points where the hands and feet of Jesus were positioned. The parents read a text explaining the meaning of the cross and the nails and said a family prayer.

Then the parents explained the Resurrection and the children and parents placed flowers and plant branches into the burlap to represent the beauty of life. The parents explained to the children that Jesus was really dead and then rose, defeating death forever.

Afterwards, the families carried the crosses home. There were as many different crosses as there were families. The crosses were all different. The crosses were all the same. The crosses were all beautiful. Just like us.

What They Think of Us: Zombie Nativity

Jasen Dixon says that he did not intend to offend anyone with his zombie nativity scene. There is now a fundraiser under way and a Facebook page for what supporters are calling a “wonderful piece of artwork.” Hostile online posters derisively said “… Jesus is the most famous zombie the world has ever known.  …  I thought that Jesus being a zombie was pretty much the central tenet of the religion.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/zombie-nativity-jason-dixon_n_6374428.html

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/23/ohio-homeowner-told-to-take-down-his-zombie-nativity-scene/

http://www.wptv.com/news/local-news/water-cooler/jasen-dixon-man-has-to-remove-zombie-nativity-scene-due-to-zoning-violation

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/12/24/1224-zombie-nativity.html

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zombie-nativity-scene/365944350233282

http://io9.com/zombie-nativity-scene-is-possibly-the-greatest-thing-ev-1674937583

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/23/ohio-conservative-christians-freak-out-over-homeowners-zombie-nativity-scene-threatens-lawsuit-video/

Thanksgivingkuh

When I first heard about Thanksgivingkuh, it somehow did not sound right to me.  It is a sort of comical take on the extremely rare occurance of the American secular holiday, Thanksgiving, and the first day of the Jewish religious holiday, Hanukkah, occurring on the same day.  The next time this convergence will occur is on 28 November 79,811.   Since the Hanukkah festival lasts for eight days, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah have and will continue to occur on other days within the eight-day period over the years.  The last time both holidays fell on the first day of the festival was on 29 November 1888.  Hanukkah 2013 began on Wednesday 27 November because the Jewish day begins at sundown.  Since the Jewish calendar is lunar-based and on a nineteen year cycle, the festivals move around in date much more than in the common Gregorian Calendar.  Hanukkah begins each year on the 25^th day of the month of Kislev.

Thansgivingkuh (Thanksgiving + Hanukkah) cards have appeared along with a menurkey (menorah + turkey).  A menurkey is a turkey decoration whose tail holds the candles normally place in the sacred menorah.

I asked a Jewsih friend what he thought of Thanksgivingkuh and he said he had not heard of it but that he was amused. My friend did not share my feeling that the merging of the two holidays, one secular and one religious, was somehow sacrilegious.  Though Hanukkah is a religious holiday, many American Jews see it as overly secularized and commercialized.  Some see it as a time to give gifts so that their children will not be upset about not celebrating Christmas.

Hanukkah celebrates a Jewish military victory in 165 BC/BCE over the Greek/Syrian army of Antiochus Epiphanes after which the candle in the Temple burned for eight days on a supply of oil sufficient for only one day.  The battle ended on 25 Kislev. This was seen as an affirmation from God of the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.  The word “Hanukkah” derives from the Hebrew verb חנך   which means “to dedicate.”  The festival is mentioned in the New Testament at John 10:22-23.  The events of Hanukkah are recounted in the apocryphal books of 1 and 2 Maccabees.

Rachel Gurevitz, the Senior Rabbi at Congregation B.nai Shalom in Westborough, Massacusetts, sees Thanksgivingkuh as a chance to discuss Jewish and American history with children, seeing a convergence of meaning in both holidays.  Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, on the Fox News Channel, said essentially the same thing.

I am not a humorless Scrooge, but Thanksgivingkuh still strikes me as questionable.

………………………………………….

I am not sure who first pointed this out, but Hanukkah, from a Christian perspective, is very important.  If Antiochus Epiphanes had succeeded in basically exterminating the Jewish religion, then Jesus would probably not have been born as a Jew.   Jesus had to be truly human, He had to be truly divine, and He had to be Jewish.  Salvation comes through the Jews (John 4: 22).  God used the Jewish nation over the centuries to reveal Himself in a manner intellible to man’s limited understanding.  All of history before the Crucifixion was a preparation and an explanation of what God is like and what the Crucifixion and Resurrection mean.

Film Comment: Ancient Relic

The general consensus of the internet discussion about Ancient Relic (original title: Das Jesus Video), a German language made for television movie, is that it is rather lackluster and mundane.  The film will nevr win any awards.  It is a competent but obviously low-budget production.

Basically, the plot of Ancient Relic is this: an archeological crew in Israel discovers a previously unknown 2000 year old burial chamber containing a skeleton.  Nothing unusual there.  Then they notice that some of the skeleton’s teeth have modern amalgam fillings.  Then they notice the titanium rod and screws in the leg.  Then they notice the camcorder instruction manual.  Things really heat up when they find the word “Jesus” handwritten on the manual.  This would indicate that a time traveler may have made a videotape of Jesus.

Nefarious types suddenly appear and everyone begins trying to capture the young graduate student who discovered the tomb.  Everyone is convinced that he knows more than he actually does. Bullets fly, chases ensue, people are murdered, and the movie becomes a violent political chase thriller.  The persons pursuing the student are revealed to be associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

In case you think you might actually want to view this film, be aware that this next section contains SPOILERS.

A company owned by the ruthless man who has financed all the mayhem just happens to have also financed time travel research.  When the camcorder itself is actually found, the recording reveals that the graduate student is the time traveler.  The recording also reveals the dessicated corpse of a bearded man, presumed to be Jesus.

The film portrays the Roman Catholic Church as a giant political organization willing to use any means, even murder, to get what it wants.  The film is also a direct denial of the truth of the Resurrection.

On a simple story level, there are numerous plot holes present in this film.  The most glaring question: would a person not be expected to recognize his own handwriting?

Can You Respond to These Criticisms?

Christian Apologetics is the study of defending the faith against intellectual attacks and explaining biblical truths and concepts to non-believers in ways which they can understand.  It also attempts to give believers a rational footing on which to base their faith.  Some of the attacks are quite harsh.  See how you would respond to these ten criticisms … if you can.  If you cannot, don’t expect that our critics will be swayed by “because the Bible says so.”

http://con-w.com/top-ten-signs-youre-a-fundamentalist-christian/

Messsianic Prophecies: His Body Will Not Decay

“For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Psalm 16:10

David is speaking here in the Psalm and many then and now believed that the “holy one” of whom he speaks is David himself.  Holy as in the sense of holiness and being a saint, set apart from the world and dedicated to God.

Hell can be interpreted as separation from God.

Peter, in Acts 2:27, reinterprets the passage as a reference to Jesus’ resurrection.  Most conservative Christians now see this verse as a messianic prophecy.

“Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Acts 2:27

Paul also used the verse in the same way.

“Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”  Acts 13:35

Definition: Eschatology

In yesterday’s post the quotation mentioned eschatology, the “study of last things,” from the Greek words έσχατος (last or final) + logoς (word or study of). The word was first used in English about 1550 and refers to the “end times,” the final events of history.  The interpretations provided by the various forms of eschatology vary greatly, depending on whether the events described are viewed as literal, symbolic, allegorical, or mystical.  Each religious tradition has its own eschatology.

Christian eschatology is not universally agreed upon but often includes The Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the rapture, a 1000 year millennial period, the last judgment, and the accomplishment of God’s purposes. 

The Young Man Who Fell From the Window

Paul is considered to have been one of the great intellectuals of the Western world, even by his detractors.  As brilliant a theologian as he was, he may have been very long-winded and possibly even a boring speaker.

“And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.” Acts 20: 9-11

A fall from a third story window onto to the ground below would, at a minimum, have produced very serious injuries.  Those present thought that Eutychus was dead.

The implication is that Paul brought the young man back from the dead and then diverted the attention of the group.  A confirmed resurrection would have abruptly ended the meeting.  Paul still had much to say.  He talked until dawn.

Paul's Metaphor of the Old Man and the New man

Paul uses the metaphor of the “old man” and the “new man” to help explain what Christ did for us in His crucifixion.  Jesus was fully God.  Because He was also fully Human, His death was our death (Romans 6:6), His resurrection was our resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The excellent article in the link below is by Pastor Greg Herrick of Hillside Community Church in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  http://bible.org/article/“old-man”-and-“new-man”-paul 

Bible references:

“Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;” Colossians 3:9

“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;” Ephesians 2:15

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;  And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;  And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Romans 6:6

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Assumption

Today, August 15, is the day of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. The feast was first celebrated in the 6th Century as the feast of the Dormition (Falling Asleep) and was defined as an article of faith and a day of obligation by Pope Pius XII in 1950 in his encyclical, Munificentissimus Deus. It is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the Anglican Communion.

The dogma of the Assumption says that at her death, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was assumed body and soul directly into Heaven, with no need to wait on the Resurrection. Since she was God's privileged Ark, the mother of God, and is held to have been utterly sinless, and since the corruption of the grave is a punishment for original sin, she could not have decayed in the ground.

The Roman Catholic Church cites as scriptural basis for this doctrine the following verses: 2 Kings 1:11, Genesis 5:24, Hebrews 11:5, John 14:3, Psalm 132:8, and Revelation 12:1-5. An interesting point to Protestants is that Mary's death is not mentioned in the Bible at all. Many of the references which Catholics say speak of Mary are interpreted by Protestants as references to the Church or to Israel.

Protestants do not accept the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary and do not believe that there is any scriptural basis for doing so. We believe that this doctrine is a logical sequela of the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, both of which we believe to be unscriptural. We believe that all three come from a very forced, convoluted, "twisty-turny" interpretation of scripture used to justify non-blblical man-made doctrines. This is eisogesis (forcing ideas from outside into the Bible) instead of exogesis (deriving doctrines from and consistent with the totality of scripture).

For further reading:
"The Biblical Basis for Praying to Mary and for Catholic Teachings on Mary," http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/Articles/the_bible_on_the_blessed_virgin_Mary.pdf

Crucifix vs Cross

When Protestants wear the Cross as jewelry or use it as a symbol in their churches, it is almost exclusively an empty cross. When Roman Catholics present the Cross, it is almost exclusively as the Crucifix, with Jesus nailed upon it. Both groups revere the Cross, but they view it differently. Protestants favor the empty Cross because of their strong theological emphasis on the Resurrection, while Roman Catholics stress Jesus' death as a substitutionary sacrificial atonement.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is the "patriotic" (government sanctioned) Christian Protestant church in the People's Republic of China. The three "selves" are self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. All the selves basically mean Chinese, not foreign. In other words, Chinese controlled. The church was formed in 1892 and took its modern form in 1951 under the leadership of Y.T. Yu (1893-1979). The government has, from 1954 onwards, held tight control of the movement, spawning the development of many illegal unregistered home churches during the period of 1966-1979 when all religious activity was banned. The TSPM was restored in 1979 by the government. Unregistered house churches remain illegal in China.

The TSPM promotes five basic doctrines: the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, Jesus' dual nature as both God and man, Jesus' Death and Resurrection, and the Second Coming.

He is Risen

The embalmed, unchanged, undecaying body of Vladimir Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, b. 1870, Russia -d. 1924) has lain on display in the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow since his death in 1924. He has achieved a sort of immortality, but he's been dead since 1924 and he's still dead.

Anti-Anglican Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) wrote, in Auto-Icon: or, Farther uses of the dead to the living, a set of detailed instructions for the care and upkeep of his corpse and how it should be presented (seated in a chair). His presentation is a protest against the use of icons in religious ceremonies; an irreligious use of an icon ( a dead body) usually treated with respect and deference. His head did not respond well to the preservation process and was replaced with a wax one. His real, decaying head was placed on the floor between his feet. Jeremy's irreverence was rewarded when his head was frequently stolen, sometimes held for ransom, and once, was used at a soccer practice. His body is on display at University College London, the first college in England not affiliated with the Anglican Church.

Doubters to the contrary, it's a very old lie, Jesus does not lie in a grave. He rose from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion. The Resurrection is the pivotal event in history. Old Vlad is just a footnote and old headless Jeremy sits in his chair..

The Tree and the Hill

In our restroom at work we have a dry-erase communication board on which someone drew a picture of a several wrapped presents under a Christmas tree. The multicolored drawing is actually quite good, not just "cute."

Adequate, but not great, artist that I am, I added behind the tree a hill topped with three wooden crosses. My addition lasted for several days before someone erased it, leaving the tree and presents. I'm sure they were offended; the gospel is offensive to the world.

Non-Christians (and many Christians) love Santa, the brightly decorated trees, the elves, the mistletoe, the sleigh, happy snowmen, and the spiked egg nog, especially the spiked egg nog. They have no idea what Christmas is about. Christmas was/is the preparation for Easter. From the Beginning of the World, Jesus was coming to die so that we might live. The Gospel, the "good message" or the "true message," is not that Jesus was born in Bethlehem but that He was murdered and rose from death, defeating death for us.

Jesus Wept

"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
 And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
 Jesus wept.
" John 11:32-35.

Jesus wept at the tomb of his personal friend, Lazarus, who had been dead and buried for four days. Talking to Sean Hannity, Christian evangelist Franklin Graham said, "I think He cried because He had to bring Lazarus back."

On the Human Knowledge of Christ, Part 5

ESCHATOLOGY
This centers on Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:34-36 in the phrase "ουδε ο υιοσ," "neither the son." Some feel that this phrase was added later (it does not appear in all manuscripts) to smooth over the apparently incorrect short-range prediction made by Jesus in Matthew 10:23; Luke 21:32; Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; Mark 13:30; and Luke 9:27.
Jesus said "this generation" (γενεα) would not pass away until "all this" came to pass.
Some say that Jesus was simply wrong. Others say that Jesus as God knew the time but as a man he did not. Others say Jesus was not authorized to tell us what he knew, others that it was an Arian interpolation. Some say that "γενεα" refers to the end-time generation. Possibly the best explanation is that the knowledge of the end time was available to Jesus but for two reasons he chose not to take it up. A human could not have such knowledge and the knowledge of the end time was not necessary for the fulfillment of Jesus' mission. (And perhaps the coming of the "kingdom of god" meant something else to Jesus than his hearers understood. In Jewish theology any "signal event" in history was regarded as God coming in history. All of the Twelve lived to see the Transfiguration, and only Judas died before seeing the Resurrection. Many, myself included, believe the Resurrection, to be THE SIGNAL EVENT in history.)
Another event, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., which the Baptist theologian, Frank Stagg, pointed out was entirely foreseeable, was witnessed by some, but not all.