Category: Apologetics

Book Plunge: Pulling Back The Green Curtain Part 1

What do I think of Jim Hall’s new self-published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While the book says it’s by Stephany Chase, an interview has been done and Jim Hall is apparently the real author. We’ve dealt with Jim Hall a few times on this blog. We are quite confident he won’t engage back since any time I have challenged him on any point, he has refused to address it.

At any rate, this book is supposed to be 666 things your priest, rabbi, imam, etc. didn’t tell you. Nice to know Hall is expanding his repertoire. In all of this, I will not be able to fully comment on matters relating to Islam, though I might on some with some positions like Mormonism if I think I know enough about the subject matter. I also think it’s important to do that since I don’t want Hall misrepresenting anyone else’s religion any more than I want him misrepresenting mine.

Rather than go through the list of teachers each time, I will simply say a holy man. Hall says there are specific parts they avoid in teaching. First, I don’t doubt this on many points since many of our ministers are really quite shallow and have no wish to educate themselves. Second and more relevant here, there is nothing in the book of mine he can show me to surprise me since I’ve read the whole thing many times.

Hall also says there is no such thing as too much information. True enough, but there is the problem of false information. Hall does not have good information in this. He takes run of the mill atheist tropes and runs with them. Hall’s problem is too little information and too little if any interaction with scholarly sources.

He also says something about cognitive dissonance. This is a favorite atheist trope. It’s like it’s the only psychological condition they know. Of course, Hall has likely never read When Prophecy Fails on the matter, but hey, who needs to? I wonder if it’s cognitive dissonance that keeps him from responding to my reviews.

Hall also says to not take his word for anything. Look it up. I would believe that except as I have said, Hall has refused to respond to my review of his first book and still keeps going. Odd for someone who wants to be checked on and says there’s no such thing as too much information.

Hall also says many Christians try to wiggle out of the Old Testament saying the laws are no longer in effect. He is convinced they are. Is there any wrestling with Pauline teaching on the matter whatsoever? Nope. He has several verses for us, so let’s see.

“Keep his commandments for a thousand generations.”[ 1] – “Keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always.”[ 2] – “Remember and obey the laws of Moses.”[ 3] – “Every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever.”[ 4] – “It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”[ 5] – “One came and said unto him, Jesus, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”[ 6]

Chase, Stephany. Pulling Back The Green Curtain: 666 Things Your Religious Leaders Never Taught You (pp. 4-5). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

The first one is from Deuteronomy 7. This is a hyperbolic statement about the keeping of the commandments. It is also given to the people who had that covenant made with them. Gentiles are not those people. The second is in Deuteronomy 11 and is much the same. Malachi 4 is the third saying to remember the Law of Moses. Yep. That settles it I guess.

The fourth is from Psalm 119 and says God’s commands are true and endure forever. Note the Hebrew word for forever can refer to forever. It can refer to things lasting forever or a long time or even to something such as great men of old.

The fifth is from Luke 16 saying not one jot or tittle of the law will disappear. Correct. We also say that Jesus fulfilled the law for us. Again, Hall does not interact with any Christian interpretation of the passage.

The sixth Hall says is Luke 19:16, but it isn’t. It isn’t 20:16 or 21:16 or 18:16 either. It is the story of the rich young ruler being told to keep the commandments. Of course, he is! He’s still under the old covenant.

So again, Hall comes up amazingly short because he does not have enough information. Strange that a man who says too much information so much ignores information. Why is this?

Finally, at the end of the introduction, he has the logical problem of evil from Epictetus. Apparently, he’s unaware that Plantinga and others have solved the logical problem of evil. Atheistic philosophers don’t use it. That does not mean that the problem of evil itself has been abandoned, but some forms of it have been. Again, Hall just does not have enough information.

So next time we look at this book, we will start looking at the 666 claims. It will take awhile to go through, but what I have read so far is entirely disappointing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus The Priest

What do I think of Nicholas Perrin’s book published by Baker Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Go to several people and ask who Jesus was, Christian and non-Christian. You’ll get several different answers. On the far left fringe side, you’ll get that He’s a mythological figure drawn together from various pagan religions. On the more conservative side, you’ll hear that He’s the Son of God, Son of Man, God incarnate, and the Messiah. A Jewish Christian might more emphasize Him being the Messiah. A skeptical person might say He was a great teacher and some would say He was a Marxist, a Socialist, a feminist, a homosexual, or any number of positions.

Yet you will be hard-pressed to find someone who will say “Jesus was the high priest of Israel.”

This is the position that Nicholas Perrin holds in his work. He does not deny the other more conservative aspects, but thinks we need to realize that Jesus was establishing Himself as the true priest of Israel and thus challenging the reigning priesthood at the time. He was also raising up His disciples to be priests after Him and continue the priesthood ministry of bringing God to men.

This starts with the Lord’s prayer and goes on from there. This is really a very priestly prayer with significant eschatological overtones. There is nothing wrong with praying it as a way of dealing with daily temptation and seeking to find God in our daily lives, but let’s not make refuse to make it even more than that. Jesus in this prayer sets apart a community that is awaiting the Kingdom of God and seeking to bring it about at the same time.

From there, Perrin goes to other places like the baptism of Jesus by John and how there were overtones that were present at this event that would have been seen by both John and Jesus. The arguments are very complex as page upon page is presented to deal with each one. Thus, I will not be fully summarizing them in a brief review.

Some might ask how Jesus could be a priest in His time in the eyes of His contemporaries if it was known priests came from the tribe of Levi and Jesus from Judah. Perrin answers that David and Solomon both took on priestly duties in their work as king and both in their own way were considered prophets. Jesus is acting in the same way. Josiah and Hezekiah could be different cases since neither of those kings ruled over a unified kingdom.

Perrin’s work is a fascinating look at a topic that doesn’t get much discussion. In our day and age, when we think of a priest, we normally think of someone in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. Perhaps those of us who are Protestant need to reclaim the title. It is hard for us to be a kingdom of priests when none of us are called priests.

I understand there is another book in the works on this topic which I hope to see because there was one glaring omission in this work that kept coming to my mind. There was very little interaction with Hebrews. This is the book of the Bible that I contend has the most direct teaching about Jesus being a priest and yet the relevant chapters were not really touched. I am left wondering if this was deliberate on Perrin’s part to be saved for the future book that could look at how this is expressed in the epistles. I certainly hope so.

Those who do want to think about Jesus in a new role but consistent with traditional Christian teaching should give this work a shot. It is very thorough and very well-argued and quite enjoyable. It is a bit deep for the layman, but those wanting to get the jewels will get them if they dig deep enough.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

A Response To Twelve Painful Facts

Should Christians be in pain because of these “facts”? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So there has been a post I’ve seen recently about twelve painful facts for Christians. As near as I can tell, the author is an atheist named Michael Sherlock. He is apparently pursuing a Master’s in Arts at the University of England majoring in studies of religion. Let’s see how good his studies are doing. Fortunately, he does give sources for his claims.

Fact 1: The earliest official gospel (Mark) was written over a generation (40 years) after the alleged death of Jesus and subsequently, it fails the historical test of contemporaneity.

Source: Paul. J. Achtemeier. Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary Revised Edition. Harper Collins (1989), p. 653; John Barton and John Muddiman. The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press (2001), p. 886.

Reply: I would actually place Mark earlier and interestingly, so would skeptics like James Crossley who even places it in the 40’s. I did a research project on Mark once and most scholars do date it to before 70 A.D. This is secondary stuff. There’s two things I want to say about this.

First, there is no alleged death of Jesus. Jesus died.

“The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable, despite hypotheses of a pseudo-death or a deception which are sometimes put forward. It need not be discussed further here.” (Gerd Ludemann. .”What Really Happened To Jesus?” Page 17.)

Christians who wanted to proclaim Jesus as messiah would not have invented the notion that he was crucified because his crucifixion created such a scandal. Indeed, the apostle Paul calls it the chief “stumbling block” for Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). Where did the tradition come from? It must have actually happened. (Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition. pages 221-222)

Jesus was executed by crucifixion, which was a common method of torture and execution used by the Romans. (Dale Martin, New Testament History and Literature. Page 181)

That Jesus was executed because he or someone else was claiming that he was the king of the Jews seems to be historically accurate. (ibid. 186)

Jesus’ execution is as historically certain as any ancient event can ever be but what about all those very specific details that fill out the story? (John Dominic Crossan http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-d…_b_847504.html)

Second, there is no historical case I know of for contemporaneity in the sense that a document must be contemporary in order to be trustworthy. Most of what we have isn’t. This rule about being contemporary is a made-up rule by Jesus mythicists to argue their case. Also, if early dating of the New Testament is accurate, we do have contemporary witness. We definitely do in Paul.

Fact 2: 612 of the 662 verses in the Gospel of Mark can all be found in Matthew, and in largely the same order, thereby demonstrating that the anonymous author of “Matthew” copied heavily from the Gospel of Mark.

Source: Graham N. Stanton. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press (1989), pp. 63-64.

Reply: Let’s assume this is accurate.

So what? Why would Matthew need to reinvent the wheel if Mark had already spoken? Furthermore, if Mark is the testimony of Peter as an eyewitness, as a member of the three of Jesus’s inner circle, he saw things that Matthew would not have.

Let’s not forget the whole thing about the Gospels being anonymous.

The authors probably wanted to eliminate interest in who wrote the story and to focus the reader on the subject. More important, the claim of an anonymous history was higher than that of a named work. In the ancient world an anonymous book, rather like an encyclopedia article today, implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability. It would have reduced the impact of the Gospel of Matthew had the author written ‘this is my version’ instead of ‘this is what Jesus said and did.’  – The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders page 66.

Fact 4: The gospels contain numerous forgeries, contradictions and errors.

Source: Re: Story of woman taken in adultery in “John’s” Gospel; Paul. J. Achtemeier. Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary Revised Edition. Harper Collins (1989), p. 535; Re: Final 12 verses of “Mark”; Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. Stuttgart (1971), pp. 122-126. There are other examples.

Reply: I am not sure how these count in the category, but looking at this, this isn’t news. We’ve known about these verses not being original since the time of the early church. It’s because we have a strong textual tradition that we can recognize where the text has been altered. It’s amusing also that he claims numerous but only gives two.

Fact 5: The four gospels were not selected as orthodox Scripture until 180 CE

Bart D. Ehrman. Jesus Interrupted. Harper Collins Publishers (2005), p. 111.

Reply: I got this book at the library so I don’t have it now, but I wish he would have consulted a work like Who Chose The Gospels? by Charles Hill. There also weren’t really debates about canonicity. From the beginning, the four Gospels we have were recognized as Scripture by the church fathers. Irenaeus made the first formal statement about them, but that was nothing new.

Fact 6: There are no first century witnesses outside of the corrupt and biased gospels that attest to the earthly existence of Jesus Christ, but for a forged passage in the work of the Jewish Historian, Josephus (Testimonium Flavianum), and a second reference in that same compromised work, which is also suspect and in no way represents a specific reference to the Jesus of the gospels. (6)

Source: Re: No first century witnesses to earthly Jesus; Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted. HarperCollins (2009), p. 158; Re: Josephus forgeries; John E. Remsburg. The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence. The Truth Seeker Company (1909), pp. 32-35.

Reply: Bart Ehrman would not agree with this entirely as he does not hold that the statements in Josephus are entire forgeries. Most everyone admits there is some editing, but the majority of scholars believe there is a historical core there to the historical Jesus. This best explains the second reference to James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ. Readers would remember Josephus’s early reference.

There is also no contemporary record of a number of other great figures in history like Hannibal, Queen Boudica, and the German general Arminius. I recommend Sherlock check History for Atheists for more.

Fact 7: Almost all of the myths and moral philosophies attributed to Jesus can be found in earlier mythologies and philosophies, held by people that were proximate to the lands in which the gospels first arose.

Source: Joseph McCabe. Sources of Morality in the Gospels. Watts & Co. (1914). McCabe compiled many of the primary source pre-Christian references to the sources of Jesus’ alleged revelations, so you can go to those works and read them for yourself.

Reply: I’m going to assume this is true for the sake of argument.

So what?

My belief in Jesus does not depend on Him giving some unique mind-blowing teaching. It depends on His resurrection from the dead.

Fact 8: Most of the earliest Christians believed that Jesus was either a phantom (non-human apparition), or a completely human Jewish rabbi.

Source: Bart Ehrman. Lost Christianities. Oxford University Press (2003); Earl Doherty. The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications (2005).

Reply: We have to laugh at Earl Doherty being a serious source here. There is no interaction with the Early High Christology Club such as Bauckham, Bird, Hurtado, Tilling, etc. We don’t have any of the church fathers espousing the position listed here. That would have to mean that the apostles died off and then immediately, everyone got everything wrong about Christianity right from the start. Color me skeptical.

Fact 9: Christianity only rose to power due to its blatant disregard for its own Scripture – meaning, it aligned itself with a psychotic “pagan” emperor, Constantine, who boiled his wife in a hot tub, murdered his own son and executed his co-emperor, and he merely used Christianity to solidify his political ambitions (sole emperorship), evidenced by the fact that he continued to practice his pagan faith and mint his coins with Mithras (pagan sun-god), long after his alleged conversion. 

Source: Helen Ellebre, The Dark Side of Christian History. Morningstar Books (1995); Phillip Schaff. History of the Christian Church, Volume 5: The Middle Ages. A.D. 1049-1294. Christian Classics Ethereal Library (1882), p. 322; J.N. Hillgarth, The Conversion of Western Europe. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (1969), p. 46; Frank Viola & George Barna. Pagan Christianity. Tyndale House Publishers (2008).

Ellebre is not a scholar in the field and Viola and Barna are really not sources I take seriously on this. Having interviewed Peter Leithart on Constantine, I am skeptical of these claims. Something I still want to know though is how Christianity even got to Constantine. It went through numerous persecutions and should have died out in the first century and definitely the second. Never happened.

Fact 10: The sect of Christians that aligned themselves with Constantine became known as the Catholic (Universal) Church and their chief historian, Eusebius, re-wrote Christian history to present a false picture that favored his sect and made it look as if his group’s theology, found in the four official gospels, was always the dominant and original form, when such was not the case.

Source: Bart Ehrman. Lost Christianities. Oxford University Press (2003); Joseph Wheless. Forgery in Christianity. Psychiana (1930); Bart D. Ehrman. Jesus, Interrupted. New York: HarperCollins (2009), p. 214.

Reply: These people must believe Eusebius was a remarkable man. He had the power to traverse the whole Roman Empire and eliminate documents that disagreed with him and change histories everywhere. Simply incredible.

Since I am skeptical of fact 9, this one follows from that.

Fact 11: For the majority of its history (4th Century – 19th Century), Christianity has been a violent religion, which, like a deadly virus, has taken over its hosts and killed in order to spread.

Source: Helen Ellebre, The Dark Side of Christian History. Morningstar Books (1995); Rev. J.E. Riddle. The History of the Papacy, to the Reformation (Multiple volume series); Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (multiple volume series).

Reply: There is no in-depth analysis here. You will not find him interacting with a scholar like Thomas Madden on the Crusades or Henry Kamen on the Inquisition. Without specific claims, I really can’t say much here. Sherlock just seems to want to go for emotional points.

Fact 12: When Christianity had temporal authority, it was just as brutal as Islam.  The only reason we see more psychotic behavior from religious nuts in Islamic countries today, versus Western countries, is because the West has become increasingly secularized.

Source: Joseph McCabe. A History of the Popes. Watts and Co. (1939); Rev. Horace K. Mann. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 4. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co. Ltd. (1910); Rev. J.E. Riddle. The History of the Papacy, to the Reformation. Vol. 2. Richard Bentley (1854); Helen Ellebre, The Dark Side of Christian History. Morningstar Books (1995); John N.D. Kelly. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford University Press (2005); Archibald Bower. The History of the Popes. Griffith and Simon (1845); Johannes Janssen. The History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages. Vol. 10. Trans. A.M Christie; Kegan Paul. Trench. Trubner & Co. Ltd. (1906); Preserved Smith, PHD. History of Christian Theophagy. The Open Court Publishing Co. (1922); Jeremy Collier, M.A. An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain. Vol. 6. William Straker (1811); Carl Theophilus Odhner. Michael Servetus: His Life and Teachings. J.B. Lippincott Company (1910); R. Willis, M.D. Servetus and Calvin: A Study of an Important Epoch in the History of the Reformation. Henry S. King and Co. (1877); Sam Harris. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. W.W. Norton, New York (2005).

Reply: Again, no specific examples are given, but let’s look at the last part. It’s a shame we can’t be like more secular countries, like Russia and, oh….what’s that? Stalin murdered how many of his people? Oh. Or we could look at Mao….what? He did too? Or Pol-Pot….what? Again? Let’s not forget the Khmer Rouge or the church being persecuted in China today.

I challenge Sherlock to find one nation untouched by the Bible where he’d prefer to live instead.

So we supposedly have twelve painful facts, and yet I felt no pain whatsoever. If anything, I felt some laughter in it.

If this is what is counting for atheistic argumentation today, Christianity is in good hands.

I’d also like to note that there’s hardly any interaction with modern evangelical scholarship on the topic. I have no problem with citing skeptics as I do the same, but by all means study the other side seriously. Otherwise, you just stay in an echochamber.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/3/2019: The Apologetics Book Club

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was in seminary, I heard a funny story about an event that took place before I got there with the professor’s wives talking to the wives of students at the seminary, since the overwhelming majority of us were male. Most of them were giving the same kind of generic advice that wives would give new wives. Nothing wrong with that advice, but you could hear it anywhere. One wife did give a piece of advice you won’t find in most marriage materials, but it is directly applicable to seminary students’ wives or the wives of anyone in ministry.

“Make peace with the books.”

Yes. If you marry someone in ministry, odds are you will have to deal with a lot of books being around the house. My own wife was so thrilled when I finally got a Kindle because then there would have to be fewer books around the house. Many of my fellow apologists were astounded when Marie Kondo in her Tidying Up series said to ideally have no more than 30 books. (At this, I really wondered if my Preterism might be false and she could be the antichrist.)

We love our books in this field. What do you expect? Naturally, with the rise of the internet, we have several bibliophiles all coming together. Book clubs rise up and people come to discuss what books they love and why. Also, we can discuss what books we don’t like and why. One such club was started by one of our favorite bibliophiles who has come on the show a number of times. Now he wants to tell you about his book club. His name is Rob Bowman and he runs the Apologetics Book Club.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Robert M. Bowman Jr. is an evangelical Christian apologist, biblical scholar, author, editor, and lecturer. For over ten years (2008–2018) he served as the executive director at the Institute for Religious Research, based in Cedar Springs, Michigan (http://IRR.org). Rob has lectured on biblical studies, religion, and apologetics at Biola University, Cornerstone University, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of over sixty articles and the author or co-author of thirteen books including Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ, co-authored with J. Ed Komoszewski, and Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith, co-authored with Kenneth D. Boa. His newest book, Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism, is forthcoming in late 2019. He holds the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in biblical studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and South African Theological Seminary. Dr. Bowman is widely regarded as the leading evangelical scholar addressing the uses and interpretations of the Bible by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. He leads the Apologetics Book Club on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/apologeticsbookclub/) and blogs at https://RobertBowman.net.

We’ll be talking about this book club. Why does it exist and why should an apologist join? Why should a man of the book be reading other books? Isn’t the Bible sufficient in itself?

We’ve got the mechanism for uploading podcasts up again and I have a new sound guy who will be starting soon doing work on editing. I hope to be up to date again on episodes soon. Thanks for being a supporter and I hope you’ll keep listening to the Deeper Waters Podcast and leave a positive review on iTunes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Evil And The Burden of Proof

Who has the burden of proof when it comes to evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There’s often a debate about who has the burden of proof in a discussion. Many atheists will automatically assume that a theist has a burden of proof. This is really begging the question to argue that the theist has something additional to add to reality since it assumes reality is atheistic. My rule is much simpler. If anyone makes a claim, they have a burden to show it.

Thus, if I get into a debate about the existence of God and I say “God exists”, then I have the burden. If we are talking and you say “God doesn’t exist”, you have the burden. Note also it won’t work to say “Well demonstrate otherwise.” Even if I could not demonstrate the existence of God, it does not mean His non-existence has been demonstrated.

So when it comes to evil, evil is a claim that God does not exist. Some atheists will be more lenient and say it is probable that God doesn’t exist. Most internet atheists haven’t got the memo yet that the logical problem of evil isn’t used by academic philosophers anymore.

This will often come down to what is called gratuitous evil. This is evil that it is thought that no greater good can come out of this or no greater evil is prevented by this. I hope observant readers will notice that this is a very bold claim. How could someone know this? The problem for the claimant is that they need to back this.

Now you as at the person not supporting this argument, theist or not, do not have the burden here. I think you should answer, but never lose sight of the fact that you don’t have the burden. Let’s suppose that you don’t have a reason why God allowed a particular evil to occur. So what? Are you obligated to have personal insight into God and know why He does everything He does?

Now some might say that you need to show that God exists if you’re going to assert it’s possible for God to bring about a greater good or prevent a greater evil. This is false. Note that this is an argument against Christian theism or at least general theism. With that, you take God as He is in the system, which would include the omni qualities. The argument is meant to show if the existing of evil is compatible with the reality of God. If you want to say that God might not be powerful enough or know enough, then you’re dealing with a different concept of God.

This is one reason I really don’t find evil convincing. There is a huge burden of proof. One could go with an argument that says that it is improbable that God exists, but then if you’re a theist, you could have several arguments in waiting, like the Thomistic arguments I prefer. If you do, then you have prior justification for your theistic position.

For the arguments I have, they are deductive and lead to the conclusion with certainty. I also think the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is powerful enough. I will grant that evil is certainly emotionally appealing. When I am suffering, my head tells me the truth of Christian theism, but my heart says otherwise. It is not really the temptation of atheism that I face. It’s more what Lewis described. God is real and this is what He’s really like.

Remember again that you do not have to provide a reason why a particular evil has occurred. Your lack of such a reason does not mean that there is no reason. That is the claim your opponent must meet and you are not obligated to demonstrate his argument for him, which you can’t anyway. If he can’t meet it, then you have no obligation to be persuaded. In reality, neither does he.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Self-Contradictory Moral Relativists

How do moral relativists contradict themselves? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This is not a blog against moral relativism so much as against moral relativists. I will in this blog accept that hypothetically moral relativism could be true. It could be true that there is nothing good or evil but thinking makes it so. It could be that good and evil are just subejctive ideas we have with no real grounding in reality.

I think that’s all nonsense, but I’m not arguing against that here.

What I am arguing against is the position of many people who espouse moral relativism. What I’m discussing happens on a regular basis and they never seem to see the contradiction. The people I know that espouse moral relativism the most often turn and post about all the evil things they think God does or God allows.

What will happen is you’ll have a thread on Facebook or some place like that and you will see someone say that the God of the Old Testament is an evil villain for putting people to death. Okay. They’re allowed to have that opinion. That’s a separate piece to argue against, but that is not the point here. Then in the replies to their claim, they will go and espouse moral relativism and say that there is no good or evil.

So let’s make this clear.

If you are a moral relativist, it is inconsistent to speak about something being good or evil and at the same time say that there is no good or evil. What you’re really saying ultimately is that God doesn’t exist because He does things you don’t like. In other words, the only God you’ll agree exists is one that agrees entirely with you. I would hope most of us would realize that if God exists, odds are we have a lot of claims wrong about reality and He knows better.

Now you could hypothetically say that if moral realism is true, then Christianity has a problem with the problem of evil. I don’t think we do, but at least you’re being consistent then and saying “On your view of moral realism, this is a problem.” Despite that, I wonder how it is that you can recognize the evil that you complain about anyway.

Let’s also be clear on something else. When we say that God is needed to know what the good is, that does not mean you need explicit knowledge of God in some way to know what goodness is. Goodness is part of general revelation and is there for everyone to know about. You need God to ground the good, but you do not need God to know the good.

If you want to be a moral relativist, that is your choice, but please do not be inconsistent and talk about the problem of evil or the evil things God does or anything like that. At the same time, be consistent and say that there is nothing truly good either. Good luck also living that worldview consistently. I don’t think it’s possible and every time I see a moral relativist complain about evil, I take it as further confirmation that it’s not tenable.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

On Josh Harris

What do I think of Josh Harris’s “Deconstruction?” Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Back when I was in Bible College, I remember hearing a lot of talk about a book called I Kissed Dating Good-Bye. I never read it because frankly, dating and I had never even really got to say hello to one another. My apologetics books were much more interesting to me anyway. While I was unaffected, it turns out that many people were affected by this book.

While I am sure Harris had a lot of passion and good intentions, it looks like he did not have knowledge and experience. Still, his book had a major impact on the purity culture. The purity culture had a great desire for holiness, but they also had a number of huge problems. Purity should be emphasized, but often it sounds like sex destroys purity. If you have sex before marriage, which you shouldn’t, you’re just damaged goods.

I also know a lot of people who wanted the first kiss at the altar idea. I really can’t go along with this as there is supposed to be some physical involvement in dating. I think that as long as you’re not touching intimate areas, you’re fine.

But this isn’t about dating. This is about Josh Harris. It’s been known that he recently had a divorce from his wife. As it turns out, it’s not only dating and his wife that he kissed good-bye, but also….

“My heart is full of gratitude. I wish you could see all the messages people sent me after the announcement of my divorce. They are expressions of love though they are saddened or even strongly disapprove of the decision.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
I am learning that no group has the market cornered on grace. This week I’ve received grace from Christians, atheists, evangelicals, exvangelicals, straight people, LGBTQ people, and everyone in-between. Of course there have also been strong words of rebuke from religious people. While not always pleasant, I know they are seeking to love me. (There have also been spiteful, hateful comments that angered and hurt me.)⁣⁣
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The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is “deconstruction,” the biblical phrase is “falling away.” By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith and I want to remain open to this, but I’m not there now.⁣⁣
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Martin Luther said that the entire life of believers should be repentance. There’s beauty in that sentiment regardless of your view of God. I have lived in repentance for the past several years—repenting of my self-righteousness, my fear-based approach to life, the teaching of my books, my views of women in the church, and my approach to parenting to name a few. But I specifically want to add to this list now: to the LGBTQ+ community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality. I regret standing against marriage equality, for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. I hope you can forgive me.⁣⁣
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To my Christians friends, I am grateful for your prayers. Don’t take it personally if I don’t immediately return calls. I can’t join in your mourning. I don’t view this moment negatively. I feel very much alive, and awake, and surprisingly hopeful. I believe with my sister Julian that, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” “

All of this is available on his Instagram.

So what are we to make of this? One step I can think immediately is to stop creating the celebrity culture, especially for Christians too young to know better. Harris was put in a spotlight, which is hard for anyone, but harder still when one doesn’t have the maturity needed for fame. Just consider young child celebrities we often see today.

Second, Harris has talked about growing up in a fundamentalist background. This often does lead to a kind of apostasy. You all know I am extremely conservative on sexual morals, but many times fundamentalism even goes beyond that. It’s as if any sexual thought whatsoever is dirty and wicked.

Third, we need more training on marriage. It did not escape notice that Harris has gone a full 180 and is now saying that he is supporting so-called marriage equality. If anything, this was something that really stood out to me and left me wondering why this was included.

Should we pray for Harris? Absolutely, yet at the same time, the fact that this is such a story does make me think that we have too much of a celebrity culture built up. Pray for his ex-wife too. Keep in mind that we don’t know why this happened and we will naturally speculate, but we can’t demonstrate anything yet. We’ll wait and see what happens.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

It’s Not Your Fault

What is the cause of your suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife and I are part of a group for Christians with Borderline Personality Disorder on Facebook. She has the condition. I don’t, but I am in there to be supportive. Yesterday, I saw a post by someone saying that they were being condemned by their church for having Borderline. They were supposedly making their Borderline an idol and they don’t have enough faith and they need to pray and read Scripture more and similar things. Naturally, if they truly had faith also, they would be healed.

Let’s be clear with some things at the start. We could all bear to pray more and read the Bible more. It also doesn’t hurt to examine ourselves and look for sinfulness in our own lives to work on.

Also, there are times where suffering is your own fault. If you drink alcohol and get in an accident because you were driving drunk, that is your fault. If you smoke all your life and get lung cancer, that is your fault. If you overeat and suffer the effects of obesity, that is your fault.

Yet some things you are born with or born with a predisposition to that are not your fault. A mental illness can be one of those things. While I am sure this is sometimes said to people with diabetes or people in wheelchairs, I am sure it is less often than it is for cases of mental illness, something the church just doesn’t really deal well with.

Mental illness has a stigma around it such that it is even thought to be connected with demonic activity. I do not doubt demons can influence us, but they cannot possess and control us and it’s too easy to blame our problems on a demon instead of realizing it could be something with us. If you have a mental illness, that is not your fault. What you do with the condition is your fault. I have Aspergers. I cannot control that. It is hard to look someone in the eye when I am talking to them, but that is something that I must actively work on.

In the same way, people with Borderline have powerful emotions that seem gripping and controlling. Can they be controlled? Yes. Is that easy? No. It can often require a combination of medication and therapy. It’s the same way with a phobia. One doesn’t just sit down and will through a phobia naturally. It takes concentrated work and effort to overcome it. I am terrified of water and when I get in a swimming pool, it takes a concentrated effort to move where I need to move. It is not bulldozed over.

The church doesn’t help with this when the church demands instant cures. Now, can an instant cure happen? Sure. God can do it if He wants to. I know people who come to Jesus who have addictions like alcohol and drugs and when they convert, they lose their addictions. That can happen. Sometimes, it does not happen. It is foolish and cruel to say the reason someone is suffering is that they don’t have enough faith.

It’s also just bad theology. Sometimes we do suffer for our own sins, as I said. Sometimes we suffer for the sins of others. Sometimes we suffer because this is a fallen world. It is a foolish person who thinks without divine revelation that he can tell you why a certain kind of suffering is taking place like that. We must be very careful whenever we make any sort of claim to speak for God.

What the sufferers often need most is not someone to fix their problems. We should have people who are ready to be good therapists and counselors and work with them, but if you’re not that, don’t try to be one. Here’s something you can be. You can be a listener. You can be a friend.

Try this for the person with mental illness that you know. Pick up a phone and call them. Send them a message on Facebook. Go to their place and visit them. Take them out to eat sometime. Show the other person you’re glad to have them around. Do not do anything to them that indicates that they are a bother. If you think having to deal with someone like that is a bother, it speaks more about you than it does about them.

Many people like this can struggle with thoughts of depression and suicide. How does it help someone like that to pile on to them? Don’t also tell them they’re being selfish or self-centered. In the moment, that is not helpful to them. It only gives them more reason to be depressed and/or suicidal.

Overall, be Jesus to these people. Jesus never turned away people who were truly suffering and in need. He always had the greatest of love for sinners. The people who thought they were alright were the people He had the most problems with. If people don’t think Jesus will accept them, maybe it’s because they’ve met too many people who claim to represent Jesus who haven’t.

I look forward to the day when the church treats mental illness in much the same way they treat physical illness. Of course, some churches are still horrible there, but I think it often gets worse for mental illness. Come alongside those who are suffering. Be a friend and confidant and really listen to them. If you reach out to someone you know with a condition, you never know how much hope that might give them.

You’ll truly be being Jesus to them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/27/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There are many things that bring me great joy in life. Two of them are getting to do Christian apologetics, and my beautiful wife Allie. What’s interesting is that for the most part, it seems the fairer sex and apologetics don’t normally go hand in hand. You have some exceptions like Holly Ordway, Mary Jo Sharp, Natasha Crain, and Nancy Pearcey. These are awesome to have, but it seems like for the most part, apologetics is a man’s world.

That could also include the home. In many cases, the man is the spiritual leader of the home even if he’s less advanced in Christianity. So when it comes to raising children, then shouldn’t it also be the man that teaches the child about Christianity and also how to defend it? Mothers are often so busy anyway. There’s taking care of the house, fixing meals, watching the kids, and everything else. Being a mother is often a sadly thankless job.

But could it be that part of this is wrong? Could a mother actually teach her child something about apologetics? How could she do so with a busy schedule as a mother? Is it possible to do something like that? Where could a mother go to learn this?

Fortunately, there has been a book that has come out aimed at mothers and their instinct as a mama bear. After all, a good mother will fight anyone with a fierceness if her children are in danger. Why not fight if the kid’s in spiritual danger? For that, we do need Mama Bears. These are bears that will roar like a mother.

For that, we need an organization like Mama Bear Apologetics. We also need a book like Mama Bear Apologetics. We also need someone who will be a spokeswoman for that movement, and that woman is Hillary Ferrer and she’ll be my guest this Saturday.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

Hillary Morgan Ferrer, founder of Mama Bear Apologetics, has a burden for providing accessible apologetics resources for busy moms. She has a master’s in biology and her specialties are scientific apologetics, dealing with doubt, and identifying causes and solutions for youth leaving the church. Currently, she serves as vice president of Women in Apologetics, a Christian non-profit organization dedicated to equipping, encouraging, and educating women in apologetics.

We’ll be talking about apologetics for mothers. How can a mother devote her life to being a wife and mother and at the same time do Christian apologetics? Ferrer has gathered a team of mothers around her who are interested in apologetics to work on this project together and help other mothers roar like a mother.

We are working on getting past shows on the web. I have seen that I have received an updated way to do that due to a web issue. Please be watching for the next episode and leave a positive review on iTunes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Nine

What’s there to celebrate? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So for many people, it’s their typical Wednesday. They get up and go to work and come home and see their families and go to bed. For some, it will be different, but for many, today is a day like any other day. I can’t blame them for that. For some people though, there can be something special about a day that to us seems absolutely normal.

For myself and my wife, that day is today. Today, we celebrate nine years of marriage together. On this date nine years ago, we stood at an altar and promised exclusive lifelong commitment to one another. That commitment has been tried and tested a few times, but it is still there.

Marriage is something incredible because by a divine speech-act as it were, something is called into being that wasn’t there before. Allie entered a church one day as Allie Licona and left that church as Allie Peters. I entered the church technically still a bachelor and left a husband.

Over time, love has grown. Now does that mean that the same feelings and excitement are always there like they were at the start? No. Of course not. There is instead something deeper. There is a love that is not dependent on my emotional state. It can lead to strong emotional states at times, but it goes beyond them.

Some people are surprised to hear that marriage is work. How can it be work to love someone? That’s pretty easy to say when the two of you are dating and you’re putting your best foot forward. It’s not as easy when you have to make a budget together, work out who will do the chores, and realize the other person snores and has morning breath sometimes.

In this, I find it helpful to remember that I am also very hard to love. We all are. There are things about us that drive other people around us crazy. (Okay. Sometimes on my end it is intentional.) Allie has to put up with a number of my mannerisms that seem normal to me but can drive her batty. Sometimes, those same idiosyncracies you thought were so cute when you were dating become major annoyances later on.

Yes. Marriage is hard work. Still, it is worthwhile hard work. There is nothing like having someone I can wake up to every morning and when we hit the road to go on another adventure together, and every trip is just that, she is by my side. There is the gift of getting to share your love together which in marriage includes the gift of sexuality and I am constantly amazed when I see my wife that her beauty never gets tiring. Despite her being nine years older, though since I married her young that means right now just 28, she has kept getting more and more beautiful in my eyes.

Everyday, my Princess is to be loved, but today is a day to especially celebrate that love. No. I am not telling what our plans are for the day as I have surprises in store that she does not know about, but that’s okay also because they’re not for you. They’re for my one and only, the lady who still brings a smile to my face.

Happy anniversary Allie! I love you so much!

In Christ,
Nick Peters