Urbana 2012 Streaming Live! And recorded for later viewing.

This conference only happens once every three years.  This year there are over 16,000 college students and missionaries from around the world in attendance.  Urbana 2012, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship's world missions conference, can be seen streaming live @ https://urbana.org/live.  Also,the videos from earlier in the conference can be found below the "live" monitor.

These are great videos to watch if you're curious about Christian service in the world.

Please Rate Your Satisfaction.

Consumers rate third-party retailers on Amazon based on shipping speed and product quality.  Outdoor enthusiasts rate the weight and adjustability of the latest trekking poles.  Coffee addicts rate the latest local roast, the newest espresso machine and their favorite drug dealer.

People today--in this tech-savvy, consumer oriented postmodern world--want something that works.  We want the best product, and rightly so.  Who can blame their neighbor, who is about to backpack the alps, for checking the reviews on trekking poles?  Seems like wisdom to me.  And why not with their choice of World-View?  Don't people want the view of the world that will provide the greatest satisfaction and contentment with life?  Amazon asks, "Were you satisfied with your product?"  and the evangelist asks, "Are you satisfied with your worldview?"

I bought a Contigo coffee mug at Costco recently.  It doesn't leak, it keeps my coffee toasty hot, and it doesn't affect the flavor of my favorite roast.  You should buy one.


We, as humans, naturally tell people about the things we're satisfied with.  We want to share our blessings.  That's why I write this blog.  I'm trying--like I did with the Contigo mug just now--to tell people about the best view of the world, the best, most beautifully satisfying, life.  My primary purpose on this planet is to love its inhabitants in the best possible way and to seek justice for the oppressed.  God is most revealed and honored in my life when I am most satisfied in who He is, and in who he's created me to be.  I have no regrets.  At all.

And you?  Can you rate your view of the world on a 1-10 scale?  Are you content?  Would you recommend your worldview to your friends because of how unceasingly satisfied you are with your life?  If not, why not do some research?  We do it with running shoes, why not with that which decides our internal--and external--peace?

Think about it.

Is the New Testament historically reliable?

With all of the ideas floating around in Newsweek articles, Times Square Billboards, and conspiracy books under the guise of historical scholarship, people are confused about the identity of Jesus and the historical accuracy of the New Testament.  This is an interview with Craig Evans, one of the foremost New Testament scholars in the academic world, who's ideas influence the both the secular and confessional.  He comes to clear away the sludge.

pondering evil

In 1999 guns were just as accessible as they are now. In the last thirteen years there have been 31 school shootings. There were no school massacres before that.

Why?
I don’t know why.
Gun laws have actually tightened up in that thirteen years.

I suppose it's because there are more broken, forgotten people with no sense of community or family. More people for whom Christmas means a time of remembered hurt and abuse, effected by those closest to them. More people who, due to the current lack of any viable ethic, wonder why they shouldn't kill, if they're going to commit suicide anyway.

At least that way, if they massacre a bunch of children, somebody will notice them; just this once, they will be remembered.  People who kill are often people in pain.  Children are just collections of slimy cells and synapses and chemical responses to environments.  Right?  That's what we learn in BIO101.

What do you think?  Is it the guns?  Is it the breakdown of community?  Is it the lack of real communal communication due to the rapid rise of texting, emailing, facebooking?  It must be something.  There have been 31 school shootings in thirteen years, and before that there weren't any.  Why?

C.S. Lewis on The Problem of Pain

C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain:

“...Plato rightly taught that virtue is one. You cannot be kind unless you have all the other virtues. If, being cowardly, conceited, and slothful, you have never yet done a fellow creature great mischief, that is only because your neighbour's welfare has not yet happened to conflict with your safety, self-approval, or ease. Every vice leads to cruelty.”


“The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.”


“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”


“A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”

A brief response to Bart Ehrman's Newsweek article: "What do we know about Jesus?"

The cover story of a recent Newsweek, which can be found here, is titled thus: "Who was Jesus?"

The author of the article, Dr. Bart Ehrman, is a professor of New Testament Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.  For those who take Christianity seriously he's a proverbial button pusher.  Below is the final paragraph of his article, as well as my response to it.

"These are books that [are] meant to declare religious truths, not historical facts. For believers who think that truth must, necessarily, be based on history, that probably will not be good news at all. But for those with a broader vision, a more generous appreciation of 
literature, and a fuller sense of theological meaning, the story of the Christ-child and his appearance in the world can be founded not on what really did happen..."


If the events did not happen in real history (granted, precise dates aren't incredibly important), then there is no Christian theology.  The study of the Christian God is centered around God being born a man, living a man, dying a man, and rising again a man.  A real one, in history.  If those events did not take place then there is no real Christianity.  Without the reality of the crucifix and the empty grave, there is nothing to celebrate.  Death is not defeated.  Evil wins.

When you die you stay dead.

Sure, as Ehrman points out the birth narratives may be off by a bit as they concern dates and the number of wise men, etc., but if somebody loses their faith because there were 19 wise men and not three, then they probably didn't have much stock in their beliefs to begin with.  But if Jesus was not born and did not live and did not die and rise, then we've got nothing to hope in.

Dust to dust.  Good game.

One final thought:  There are many explanations to the problems raised by Ehrman, and many, many scholars (believing and non-believing) who straightforwardly disagree with his findings.

"But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Corinthians 15:13-19, ESV)

Why did Jesus live?

Before you begin reading, consider this: Without reading the whole of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), there is no way to really get a feel for who Jesus was, what he taught and believed, and who he is. The following is my attempt at re-telling a story that has already been told many, many times. Maybe, then, this writing is just for me; maybe it’s just for my own development. Proceed with caution.  If you've already read the four part series, which I wrote last month, then scroll down until you see the picture of a sheep; that's where today's content begins.  If you haven't, start from the beginning.

Several days ago I wrote a post on ignorance in Eden. You can read it here. I recommend it, if only for the sake of your understanding where I'm going with the following paragraphs. It's short.

This is how the post ends:

"The leaves of the Tree of Life, from which we were once banished, are now for the healing of the nations. The first exile was from Eden, from that place of no dichotomy [between good and evil], to a place of dichotomy. If 'place' is confusing, think of it as a state of being. We are exiled out of the intended state of being -- that of no moral distinction between any word or deed -- and into a place running rampant with gross manifestations of evil, full of dichotomies.

One who walks in the power and knowledge of Jesus the Messiah is brought out of that exile. There's a new Exodus, and it's happening right now. I suggest you get your staff and satchel and join us, we're learning to bear the light of love and justice on this strange and dangerous planet."

This place of no moral distinction, now and still to come, is the gift of all Christians. Let me explain...

Click to read more »

NT Wright. Is His God...Right?

Over at Calvin College NT Wright gave a lecture this past January. If you have an hour, Wright offers a wonderful re-telling of the Gospel.  If you've been curious about what Christianity is, from an insider's perspective, or if you're wondering what N.T. Wright has to say, this is worth the time.  If nothing else, begin at the 35 minute-mark and watch for a few.  Or, to get his conclusion, hit the 56 minute-mark through the end.

1 of the amazing things Saint Augustine said.

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”
― Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions