While debating with a fellow Brother in Christ (As far as I can tell anyway.) whether Darwinian evolution could be reconciled with the creation account of Genesis I was recently asked whether it’s plausible the earth could have been created with the appearance of age. Here’s my response: The short answer is: no. Simply put; it is impossible for God to lie according to Hebrews 6:18 and deliberate deception surely falls into that category. ...

I was asked a couple of questions recently regarding unity and how I believe we ought to pursue it in regards to the Church of Christ. Since these questions cut to the heart of many of the struggles that occur in the body of Christ (unfortunately, often in the name of Christ) I figured I’d share them here. Enjoy! “Do you affirm that unity is not to come at the expense of truth?” ...

[HT The Ruth Institute] What if our culture’s assumption that “freely chosen relationships” is not true? We’ve long held in our culture that arranged marriages are inherently evil for depriving couples of the freedom to choose their (supposedly) life-long mates. However, what if we discovered that instead of love being diminished by the removal of the prospective spouses’ free choice of whom to wed, we discovered that love is actually increased? ...

I’ve been thinking about the recent court case in California to repeal Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage (Actually, it was really more a positive affirmation of what marriage has been understood to be for centuries due to the provocation of the radical and aggressive agenda of the GLBT movement.) and I’ve come up with a few questions for the GLBT community. I am curious to know why the GLBT community thinks this is immoral and not fair that the citizens of California voted overwhelmingly to include specific language (12 words to be precise) into their state’s constitution which concretely defines marriage to be between a man and a woman. ...

A friend of mine recently posed an interesting question: Over the years the question of gun ownership by Christians comes up. I hear many sincere believers make the following statement “A real Christian wouldn’t own a gun. They would trust God to protect them”. Does owning a firearm for protection or defense mean I don’t trust God to protect me or mean I am in sin? If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed. A thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he must be sold to pay for his theft. Exodus 22:2-3 ...

I’ve been reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov on the way to work in the mornings and this passage from the first book really struck me as an excellent depiction of socialism and why it is embraced by a secular society. Emphesis mine. The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself: “I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise.” In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labour question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go on living as before. It is written: “Give all that thou hast to the poor and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect.” ...

Much is made of “the local church” today but I wonder, do we really know what the term means. More importantly, do we know what that term meant to the early Christians? In an excellent post by Alan Knox, he writes: ..“church” in the NT (when not used of the “universal” church), always designates a geographical group of people. (UPDATE: When I say “a geographical group of people,” I mean a group of people in the same geographical area. HT: Lew) For example, there is the church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch, the church in Ephesus, etc. Yes, there are churches based in homes. But there is no indication that these churches were removed (separate) from the geographical church in the respective city. ...

[HT Dangerous Idea] I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of evidence is against it. That is not the point at which faith comes in. But supposing a man’s reason once decides that the weight of the evidence is for it. I can tell that man what is going to happen to him in the next few weeks. There will come a moment when there is bad news, or he is in trouble, or is living among a lot of other people who do not believe it, and all at once his emotions will rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on his belief. Or else there will come a moment when he wants a woman, or wants to tell a lie, or feels very pleased with himself, or sees a chance of making a little money in some way that is not perfectly fair; some moment, in fact, at which it would be very convenient if Christianity were not true. - CS Lewis, Mere Christianity ...

I recently ran across a poll on Facebook which posed the question, “Is a woman ever “asking” for rape?” This question intrigued me so I thought about it and came up with the following in reply: This is a misleading question meant to elicit an emotional response as opposed to a rational one. A woman is not guilty for rape, which is wholly the fault of the rapist, but her poor choices and irresponsibility can certainly put her in greater danger she wouldn’t have otherwise have faced. ...

Here’s a quote by Robert Jastro that I’ve heard in several debates around the compatibility of science and religion. [HT Brian] “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” ...