Tagged: Christian apologetics
When words lose their meaning
A panda walks into a café and orders a sandwich. He eats it, then draws a gun and shoots the other patrons.
A surviving waiter, quivering as he looks up from the carnage, asks, “Why?”
Before walking out the door, the panda tosses the waiter a poorly punctuated wildlife manual and replies, “Look it up.”
The waiter searches for the relevant entry and reads aloud: “Panda. Large, black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
This joke serves as the namesake for Lynne Truss’s best-selling book, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”
It also reminds us how easily our language may be mangled – or manipulated – so that two people using the same words can intend totally different meanings.
Is homosexuality the worst sin?
A few years ago I joined leaders of LifeWay Christian Resources in a meeting with executives of a Nashville TV station. They were preparing to launch a new program catering to gays and lesbians. We asked them to reconsider.
Among the TV executives was a lesbian. She wanted to know why Christians couldn’t just accept her for who she is. It was the only time I recall speaking up, and I said something like this:
“I accept you for who you are, if you accept me. We are both sinners who struggle with many desires. Some of them are good and some of them are not. The Bible teaches us how to tell the difference. At the end of the day, you and I must decide whether to act on these sinful desires. When we come to the point of losing our shame over sinful behavior – and actually celebrating it – we find ourselves in deep spiritual trouble.”
It wasn’t the answer she expected. It neither confirmed her suspicion of Christian malice nor compromised biblical truth. The meeting ended cordially. A few weeks later the station premiered “Out & About.”
Are religion and science closer than we think?
A Missouri pastor recently sent me a Huffington Post article in which MIT Astrophysicist Max Tegmark assures us that religion and science are much closer than one might suspect, as evidenced by the results of a new MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins.
You can read the results and view the survey questions on MIT’s website.
Tegmark and his colleagues present a detailed survey of how different U.S. faith communities view the science of origins, particularly evolution and Big Bang cosmology.
Their conclusion: “We find a striking gap between people’s personal beliefs and the official views of the faiths to which they belong. Whereas Gallup reports that 46% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago, we find that only 11% belong to religions openly rejecting evolution.”
Why some are cast out of the kingdom of heaven
One of the more humbling experiences from my days in corporate life was being told that my reserved seat on a company jet was revoked at the last minute to make room for a late-arriving executive. Not to worry. I was offered the one remaining seat, located in the plane’s lavatory, where the toilet came equipped with a safety belt. Rather than cool my heels on the tarmac, I swallowed my pride and took my place on the aluminum throne.
It reminded me of Jesus’ parable rebuking those who reclined at the choicest seats at a wedding banquet. Even more, it brought to mind the future humiliation Jesus said would come to those boasting of a place in the kingdom of heaven, yet being cast out. Though the kingdom is open to all who receive Christ by faith, the day is coming when those who falsely stake their claim will be unceremoniously shown the door.
There are at least three types of people who will be cast out of the kingdom of heaven.
Proof of heaven: 7 questions for Dr. Alexander
Christian apologetics is more than being ready to give an answer to anyone who asks a reason for the hope in us (1 Peter 3:15). Sometimes it means asking tough questions of those who deny — or sincerely misunderstand — the Christian faith.
A case in point is Eben Alexander, a celebrated neurosurgeon who recently granted an interview with FoxNews.com’s online magazine. Alexander knows a great deal about the human brain, and for years he used that knowledge to refute claims by those who said they visited heaven during near-death experiences (NDEs).
He believed NDEs were fantasies the brain produced under extreme duress. But as the magazine interview reveals, all that changed when Alexander had his own near-death experience, which he outlines in his book, “Proof of Heaven.”
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