Christianity in the 21st century: Christ and Crisis

In a little book entitled Christ and Crisis written in 1962, Dr. Charles Malik, the former president of the General Assembly of the United Nations, wrote:[1]

Why Religion Won’t Go Away

We are witnessing a shift away from the secularization (the diminishing influence of religion) of the 19^th and 20^th century. The 21^st century is shaping up to be postsecular.

The Problem of Universals and the Textual Transmission of the New Testament Documents

I’ve just finished reading The Heresy of Orthodoxy. I highly recommend it as an antidote to the skepticism of New Testament critics such as Bart Ehrman. In fact, I am using the book as one of my texts this summer for a class I am teaching on Apologetics.

The Heresy of Orthodoxy

I’ve been reading Andreas Kostenberger’s and Michael Kruger’s The Heresy of Orthodoxy. This book is a scholarly response to a view that has been recently popularized by Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels, a view originally advanced by the German theologian Walter Bauer (1877-1960).

There cannot be just one true religion, can there?

Earlier, I did a series of post on defeater beliefs to Christianity and I want to add to that series and consider again a common objection to Christianity: “Christianity cannot be the one true religion!” or (as it is commonly suggested), “all religions lead to God.” The suggestion is that no one religion has a monopoly on the truth AND if you say that one (that is, Christianity) does, you are intellectually deficient (at best) and quite possibly morally deficient as well. Let’s consider if this charge can hold up under scrutiny.

Talks

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Favorite Books of 2022

January 3, 2023

I love to read. Of course, being a professor helps. I get to read as part of my job. That’s good. But I also love to read for the sheer pleasure of it. When it comes to fiction, I love entering into secondary worlds and journeying along with the characters of the story. Often non-fiction reads like a good story too: life is life, story is story, and often the two kiss (a loose paraphrase of one of my favorite nonfiction stories of the year, All that is Sad is Untrue). (more…)

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Favorite Books of 2021

January 10, 2022

I love to read. It’s partly why I’m an academic today. What could be better than reading, writing, teaching, and learning every day? Reading books awakens me: to truth, goodness, and beauty. I try, each year, to read broadly. This year, I managed to read 47 books. I’ve been recording every book read in a book log for over 10 years now. Whenever I finish a book, I list the date finished, the title, author, and a one sentence summary of the book. As has become my custom, I offer to you my favorite reads of the past year in philosophy, apologetics and theology, fiction, and non-fiction. (more…)

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Favorite Books of 2020

January 2, 2021

2020 has been a year of change for my family. We moved in the middle of a pandemic from Texas to Florida. I started a new job as a professor of philosophy and the director of a new program in philosophy at Palm Beach Atlantic University. We left behind two of our children in Texas–both college students at Baylor. Our younger two sons have had to endure an on-again/off-again year at a new school. But there have been many constants, even in the midst of change. Family. Jesus. And the reading of books! And this blog post. (more…)

Posted in Sample Post 1, BRILLIANT AND BEAUTIFUL BLOG