What do I think of Tom Gilson’s book published by DeWard Publishing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Sometimes we hear some news and we think it would be wonderful, but then we conclude that it is too good to be true. Rarely do we ever consider the opposite. What if something was too good to be false? What if Jesus was just someone like that?
Tom Gilson has an interesting hypothesis that not much has been done with in history, but I think needs some serious looking at. In it, he points out that the character of Jesus is really one unlike anyone else in history either fictional or non-fictional. There are some people that could come close, but we realize many of their faults and failures and they themselves do.
Jesus is someone who shows up and never asks for advice, never claims to be learning something new from a dialogue, seems to know everything that is going on, never apologizes for anything, never relies on anyone else for any claim that He makes, etc. Now if you take anyone who is like that on paper you would consider them insufferable to be around and you would not want to be around them. However, Jesus is not like that. Many people who read the Gospels love the figure of Jesus. They think He’s incredible. Bart Ehrman in his latest book refers to Jesus as one of the three great figures He wants to meet.
Not only that, but Jesus is also claiming to be God incarnate in the Gospels and yet still, we don’t see Him acting in such a way that we might expect. We don’t see Him raining down judgment or acting aloof to the culture. We still see attributes that are remarkably human.
This is Gilson’s fascinating hypothesis. If Jesus did not exist as presented in the Gospels, we should be seeking to meet the people who created Him because they are the greatest geniuses of all time. How is it also that if the skeptics are right, all these stories changed drastically over time, but they came together to show this figure of remarkable insight and character that is unparalleled in all of fiction and history? Note the inclusion of fiction in there. No one has created a figure like Jesus. Possibly the closest is Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, but perhaps he is also given limited time for just that figure. If Lewis had to write a whole story where Aslan is acting on most every page, I suspect it would be impossible for even him.
If we could not create this figure, then there is only one conclusion. We did not create Him. Jesus is real. Not only is He real, we need to hold Him in the proper awe He deserves. We have become so familiar with the figure of Jesus that we haven’t considered just how shocking He is.
Gilson’s thesis is an amazing one and I hope to see more engagement with it. It would be incredible to see what someone like Bart Ehrman would say to it. I hope it gets out in the world of academia all the more.
One thing I would like to see added for future editions of the book if they come is that the idea is fascinating, but I would like to see something on how to present it in a debate. Perhaps it could even be a mock written debate that has been set up. How would Gilson use this in evangelism and how would he suggest that I use it? If we use it, how should we use other arguments alongside it, such as arguments about the resurrection and the dating and veracity of the Gospels?
This is a book to be taken seriously by Christian and skeptic alike. I look forward to seeing more that comes out concerning it.
In Christ, Nick Peters (And I affirm the virgin birth)
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
It’s been said that the Shroud of Turin is the most studied artifact ever. This could be so and it would be a fascinating relationship. Jesus Christ is the most written about and talked about figure ever in history so what is claimed to be His burial shroud would be the most talked about item in history as well.
But is the Shroud the real deal? It’s certainly an impressive work, real or not, but hasn’t it already been shown to be a fake? Didn’t we do tests to demonstrate that the Shroud actually originates in medieval times? For many people, that’s a done deal. For some, perhaps there were some problems with the test.
My guest thinks so. He began his walk not really caring so much about religious questions until he came upon a book about the Shroud. From that point on, he was inherently fascinated with it and even joined a monastery where he became an authority on the Shroud and began lecturing on it and attending every conference he could on it.
His path actually got stranger still when he encountered a lady who was interested in the Shroud and thinking they had a destiny together, he ended up leaving the monastery life and marrying her. Together, they did research and spoke on the Shroud. I have even been told that they were instrumental in raising up concerns about the veracity of the Carbon-14 tests.
His name is Joseph Marino and he’s my guest this Saturday.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Joseph Marino has a B.A. in Theological Studies from St. Louis University and is a long-time sindonologist (one who studies the Shroud of Turin). He has researched, written and lectured extensively on the Shroud since 1977. He currently works at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1977, he saw a book on the Shroud of Turin, which he had never heard of before, even though he was raised as a Catholic. He read the book in one sitting and became fascinated by the subject and proceeded to collect any material on it that he could find. In January 1980 he started living at the Benedictine monastery St. Louis Priory, which later became known as the St. Louis Abbey. In 1986, he attended his first Shroud conference and met for the first time, many of the top scientists and researchers involved. In the early 1990s he felt drawn to the priesthood and was subsequently ordained in 1994.
In 1997 Marino received a call from M. Sue Benford who informed him of her spiritual insights about the Shroud. After many discussions via phone and emails about the Shroud and other spiritual matters, he began to experience God in a whole new way. Joseph felt powerfully drawn to leave the monastery to pursue Shroud research and other spiritual paths with Benford.
Marino believes the Shroud can be shown to be the burial cloth of Jesus, then it would be an interesting archaeological object, however he believes that it’s more important for the spiritual message it can bring. As a former Benedictine monk, and Catholic priest Joseph believes that organized religion has often depicted Jesus as an unreachable deity, whose standards we can never reach. With his work he hopes to show that the Shroud represents a more human Jesus, who is someone we can not only approach, but, as indicated in the Gospel of John, a person we can even surpass in doing great things.
”It is my hope and desire that our work can get this message across, and, it is my belief that this is the destiny to which I’ve been called, which is why I have been given the passion I possess for the Shroud.”
Again, we are catching up on past shows. I hope you’ll be watching your podcast feed. Please also keep supporting the Deeper Waters Podcast any way that you can.
In Christ, Nick Peters (And I affirm the virgin birth)
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Throughout history, the Jewish people really haven’t seemed to care much for Jesus. He’s been branded as a traitor in their history and many ancient writings from Jewish circles about Jesus were far from friendly. Jesus could be depicted as suffering in the very worst circles of hell.
Then later on you have strong streams of anti-Semitism, sadly even including Martin Luther. The Jews are often so disregarded that in the last century, you had the holocaust take place. That really opened our eyes to how we need to get at the Jewishness of the New Testament and that of Jesus as well.
And the interesting thing is that the Jews are actually joining in this search. There is a resurgence of scholarship that is coming from a Jewish perspective and looking at the New Testament. It also isn’t an entirely antagonistic look either. For many Jews, Jesus is now seen as a respected and admired figure, even if they’re not Messianic Jews who do hold that Jesus is the Messiah.
What about a question like the resurrection? In this area, it is quite interesting that we have scholarship on the Jewish side that not only studies the resurrection of Jesus, but also affirms it, and even non-Messianic. Pinchas Lapides was a Jewish scholar who came to the conclusion that Jesus was raised from the dead even though he never became a Christian.
Where have other Jews come down on this question? For that, we’ll be discussing with my guest this Saturday. We will be discussing this question and also looking into the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Not only that, we’ll also be talking about the Israel College of the Bible. So who is this guest? He is a Messianic Jew himself named David Mishkin.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
David Mishkin holds degrees from Northeastern Bible College, Fuller Theological seminary, and the University of Pretoria. He has authored three books (including Jewish Scholarship on the Resurrection of Jesus), and with Craig Evans he co-edited A Handbook on the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith. He has served on the faculty of Israel College of the Bible in Netanya, Israel for over a dozen years.
We’re still working on getting caught up on past shows, but I hope you’ll be watching for this one. Please also consider supporting us on our journey. Deeper Waters works thanks to people like you.
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
We’ve all had events that changed our lives forever in a bad way. A wife could tell her husband she’s been having an affair or he could tell her he’s an addict to porn. A doctor could say the word “cancer” to patients. A son could die in a car accident.
These events shatter everything we know and require so much to recover from. Another one is a huge accusation of moral turpitude. My guest had just such an event happened. While he had been teaching journalism and living the life of an investigator, he had been accused suddenly of sexual misconduct and the #MeToo movement jumped in. Sadly, after Kavanaugh, I do have suspicions about what happened. My guest lost everything for the time and had nowhere to go.
But then, he used this to start asking bigger questions about life and especially started looking into the story of Jesus. As a result, he became a Christian. Now he’s telling his story in his book about how it happened. The book is Aftermath and my guest is Alec Klein.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Alec Klein is a bestselling author and award-winning investigative journalist formerly of the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. His groundbreaking investigations have uncovered a wide array of wrongdoing, leading to significant reforms, congressional hearings, changes in federal law, criminal convictions and more than half a billion dollars in government fines. His investigations have also set free several prisoners who were wrongfully convicted of murder and accused of other crimes. And Klein has helped dozens of excessively sentenced women gain their freedom and regain their lives through parole, commutations and pardons.
His first book, Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner, was a national bestseller published by Simon & Schuster. The book was translated into Japanese and Chinese, excerpted in Great Britain and selected as one of the “Best Business Books” by Library Journal and Strategy + Business.
His second book of nonfiction, A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside One of America’s Best High Schools, also published by Simon & Schuster, was named “One of the Best Education Books of the Year” by the American School Board Journal and translated into Chinese, where it went through several printings.
His memoir, Aftermath: When It Felt Like Life Was Over, was published in 2020 by Republic Book Publishers. It is a story about faith, forgiveness and redemption.
As a consultant since 2018, Klein helped to create and launch an Oklahoma nonprofit that assists wrongfully convicted and excessively sentenced prisoners in regaining their freedom. He devised a system that has helped free dozens of women through parole and commutation, including some who had been sentenced to life in prison. He also helped to create a drug treatment program at a nonprofit in New York to give people a second chance at employment after failing drug screens. Over the past two years, Klein has worked on a pro bono basis to help several other prisoners regain their freedom, while he has consulted on various writing and media projects. He is also the creator and host of the podcast series, Life On The Other Side: stories from prisoners, their families and those helping them find justice and redemption.
From 2011 to 2018, Klein ran The Medill Justice Project, a national investigative journalism center at Northwestern University. A full, tenured professor from 2008 to 2018, Klein led an investigation that discovered exculpatory information, prompting a federal judge to release an Illinois prisoner a decade before her release on a first-degree murder conviction, which was overturned. Other investigations Klein oversaw led to the exoneration of a Miami man who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Klein also directed a probe that freed an Oregon mother who had faced more than 30 years in prison. In addition, Klein led an investigation in which a Louisiana inmate was released from solitary confinement after more than 36 years. Over the years, Klein has fought and won Freedom of Information Act appeals and access to records in state and federal courts as part of his investigations.
Under Klein’s guidance, The Medill Justice Project earned recognition nationally and internationally for its investigations, photography, videos, podcasts and website, including nearly 100 awards in seven years. Among them was a national Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the first in Medill’s history, an Investigative Reporters & Editors award, a Sigma Delta Chi award and a Sunshine Award from the national Society of Professional Journalists. Klein also oversaw investigations that were honored with a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, Peter Lisagor Awards, local Emmy nominations, Eppy Awards from Editor & Publisher as well as awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, the Online News Association and others. Klein was also named to the Northwestern University Associated Student Government’s annual Honor Roll after being selected from a campus-wide nomination process and chosen from nearly 1,200 nominations of faculty and administrators. He was also recognized as one of six Medill faculty members by the Multicultural Student Affairs for being significant and influential people in their lives, based on an annual survey.
As a Washington Post investigative reporter from 2000 to 2008, Klein wrote a groundbreaking series on the little-known but widespread practice of reusing single-use medical devices in the United States. The stories documented patient injuries and device malfunctions and showed how the industry has eluded comprehensive oversight and is comprised of several entrepreneurs who have run afoul of federal authorities. The series, which won the Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for special projects, prompted an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s investigative arm, congressional hearings and industry reform.
Klein also wrote a three-part series for The Washington Post about the world’s big three credit-rating firms, showing how they dominate an important part of global finance with little oversight or accountability, how the rating system is subject to manipulation and conflicts of interest, and how the credit raters use strong-arm tactics to generate business. His series, a first-place winner in Washington’s Society of Professional Journalists, prompted an investigation by the New York attorney general, congressional hearings and the passage of federal law to strengthen government oversight of the industry.
Among his other stories at the Washington Post, Klein conducted a yearlong investigation of AOL’s takeover of Time Warner. His investigation, based on hundreds of confidential AOL documents, showed how AOL secretly inflated its revenue to pull off the largest merger in U.S. history to create the biggest media company in the world. His investigation sparked investigations of AOL by the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Klein’s series also prompted the company, then called AOL Time Warner, to launch its own internal investigation of its accounting, which led the company to admit that it had improperly reported at least $190 million in advertising revenue, causing it to restate two years of financial results. The company agreed to pay $510 million to settle criminal and civil allegations that its AOL division improperly pumped up revenue before and after its merger with Time Warner. In the wake of Klein’s investigation, several top AOL executives were forced to resign, several business partners involved in AOL’s schemes were indicted and convicted on fraud charges and the AOL division that was the focus of his investigation was disbanded. For his coverage of AOL, Klein won the Gerald Loeb Award, business journalism’s highest honor. He also won awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in project reporting and the Virginia Press Association in news writing.
Klein has won a number of other awards and fellowships, including at the East-West Center and the Poynter Institute. Klein, who also worked as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun and Virginian-Pilot, is a frequent guest speaker, having presented at the National Press Foundation, the American Press Institute, the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Asian American Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association, Unity: Journalists of Color, and various newspapers and other media outlets, schools, associations, clubs, conferences and education groups throughout the country and the world, including Japan, France, Canada and South Africa. Klein has been a guest lecturer at several colleges, including the University of California at Berkeley, George Washington University and New York University. He was also selected as a business writer-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Klein has given a series of Webinars to professionals throughout the country and abroad. Klein has served as a judge for the Society of American Business Editors and Writers awards and other journalism contests and has appeared on several television and radio programs, including CNN, CNBC, CBS and NPR as well as the BBC and TV Asahi. .
Klein, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University, is the author of several staged plays, a novel and the foreword to an edition of Show Me The Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication, a textbook adopted at universities across the nation.
Born in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., and raised in New York City, Klein is the son of a Japanese artist and an American journalist.
We have also caught up on some more shows and I have uploaded them. More will be coming very soon. Thank you for listening.
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
The Trinity is one of those doctrines that Christians get out when they need to deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but they don’t pay much attention to elsewhere. It’s a shame because the Trinity is a birthright of Christians. It is a teaching that can change everything for us if we let it.
While Jehovah’s Witnesses will say it is a late development, it is all over the pages of the New Testament. One such place is in Romans. Paul moves back and forth from the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit. Does a Trinitarian understanding help us in any way here? What difference does it make?
To discuss this, I have brought on a friend of mine who got in touch with me who recently wrote a book on this topic. He is a New Testament scholar and very well informed and also known as the Greek Geek. I can also assure listeners that if for some reason we cannot do the show, it will indeed be his fault. (Inside joke for those who understand it.) His name is Ron C. Fay.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Ron C. Fay did his undergraduate work at Calvin College (now Calvin University), where he majored in Physics/Math and Classical Greek. He earned his M Div and PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), where he was the New Testament Department Scholar. He has taught at both TEDS and Liberty University, at the School of Divinity, as part of the New Testament faculty. He has taught from Junior High to doctoral level courses. He spent 7 years in the pastorate as well. He currently teaches for both Liberty and the Stony Brook School. He has published on Paul, Greco-Roman Backgrounds, John, and Luke-Acts and is coediting the series Milstones in New Testament Scholarship with Stanley E. Porter. His book Father, Son, and Spirit in Romans 8: The Roman Reception of Paul’s Trinitarian Theology was just released.
Romans is a great treasure for Christians and we will be diving into it. Prepare yourself to see the Trinity in the book through new eyes. We have also recently uploaded several episodes and are catching up on others so hopefully, we will be up to date soon.
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Superheroes are really popular in our culture. While Batman and Superman and others have been around for decades, they still have new fans coming up every single day. New movies featuring them are constantly coming out and television series have been produced regularly.
These aren’t the only ones certainly. There are many more heroes such as the Avengers and other members of the Justice League and then the Justice Society and plenty of heroes that stand alone in their own right. I grew up also watching Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and those series have stuck with me to this day.
We live in a culture that loves superheroes. We want someone to come in and right the wrongs and stop evil and for many of them, we also like the moral compass they live with. Batman has a rule of not killing and in the second season of Arrow, the Green Arrow also took on that rule. If anything disappointed me severely in Man of Steel, it was when Superman killed Zod. The Superman I always knew did not kill, at least directly.
Yes. Superheroes can do many things, but unfortunately, they are also fictional so they can only do so in a fictional universe, even if that universe is meant to be ours. However, with all the things that they can do, there is one thing they cannot do.
Superheroes can’t save you.
Many superheroes despite having qualities that are Christlike, cannot provide salvation. If we looked to superheroes like they were the Messiah, we would believe many false things. What if our idea of Jesus was like superheroes? What if we formed our Christology that way? This Saturday, my guest will be someone who has considered that and written a book on Christology using superheroes to illustrate his point. The book is Superheroes Can’t Save You and the author is Todd Miles.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Todd Miles has been a follower of Jesus from a young age. A native of Oregon and resident of Portland, he is married to Camille. They have six children, Natalie, Ethan, Levi, Julius, Vicente, and Marcos. Todd is a Professor of Theology at Western Seminary where he teaches Theology, Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology, Church History, and Apologetics. He currently serves as an Elder at Hinson Church. Prior to working at Western Seminary, he was employed as a research engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Todd is an alumnus of Oregon State University (BS and MS in Nuclear Engineering), Western Seminary (MDiv), and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (PhD in Systematic Theology). Todd enjoys “all-things athletic,” “all-things Oregon State,” and reading military history and biographies. Todd is the author of many published articles and books, including Superheroes Can’t Save You: Epic Examples of Historic Heresies and A God of Many Understandings?
We’re still working on getting caught up on shows. I plan to upload several of them soon. Thanks for your patience and I hope this episode will greatly help you.
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Mormonism is a strange religious movement. While there are noted differences between it and Christianity, even those of us who know it is not Christian have some difficulties from it. Namely, there are many skeptics who like to point out supposed parallels between Christianity and Mormonism. Why is it you believe the former and not the latter? Isn’t that special pleading?
We wouldn’t want to be doing that would we? Paul claims to see Jesus appear on the Damascus Road. Joseph Smith claims to see the Father and the Son in a heavenly vision. 500 people are said to have seen the risen Jesus at one time. Several people also saw the golden plates of Joseph Smith didn’t they? Shouldn’t we be consistent? Shouldn’t we either accept both or reject both?
It’s really sad that this is a neglected area of apologetics. We have two accounts of claims of seeing something and both of them are foundational to the religion. No one has really done an in-depth look at both of these accounts as far as I know.
Until now.
Thankfully, someone stepped up to the plate and wrote an excellent book on the topic. I’ll be discussing with him this Saturday about it. I sometimes think of him as one of the best apologists you’ve never heard of. Some of you have, of course, but to many people, he’s not as well-known which is a shame. I find all of his material to be excellent. His name is Rob Bowman and he’ll be joining me Saturday.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Robert M. Bowman Jr. is the president of Faith Thinkers, a Christian apologetics ministry (www.FaithThinkers.org/). He holds MA and PhD degrees in biblical studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and South African Theological Seminary. Rob has taught undergraduate and graduate students at Biola University, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Southern Evangelical Seminary, and elsewhere. He is the author of some 60 periodical articles and the author or co-author of 15 books including Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ (with J. Ed Komoszewski), Faith Thinkers: 30 Christian Apologists You Should Know, and Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism.
I hope you’ll be joining us this Saturday. We are again working on getting the shows done and uploaded. There has been a lot going on and I personally apologize for that.
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
When I was growing up playing games on the regular Nintendo, we were told that if your cartridges aren’t working, just blow into them. That will clear out anything and the game will work fine. Most all of us did that. The thing is, it worked. It made sense. Now years later we’re finding out that that really doesn’t work.
Also, before the days of the internet, we had numerous rumors flying around about games. I still remember trying to find the Artemis esper in Final Fantasy VI. How many Pokemon players were trying to move that one truck in an attempt to get Mew?
The age of the internet has made it easier and harder with these kinds of things. With some things that can be easily checked, it’s easy to see that some claims are just false. The claim about Mew would never get off the ground today, and this is even in an age where people can easily fake YouTube videos.
Yet some myths are harder to deal with. Many atheists think today that the idea about whether Jesus existed or not is a hot debate in New Testament scholarship. Not even among atheists is it a debate. Conspiracy theories run amok on the internet.
Even among Christians, there are urban legends. Is Jeremiah 29:11 really a great verse to use in your testimony? Does Isaiah 14 describe the fall of satan? Is Genesis 3:15 really a prophecy of the virgin birth? (Which I do affirm.)
To discuss these and other urban legends of the Old Testament. The book is itself called Urban Legends of the Old Testament. The co-author is Gary Yates and he will be my guest.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Professor of Old Testament at Liberty University School of Divinity for the past 17 years and have taught at the undergrad and grad level for 20 years. I also currently serve as the Pastor of Living Word Baptist Church in Forest, Virginia. I have a ThM and PhD in Old Testament from Dallas Theological Seminary and did my dissertation on the book of Jeremiah (looking at the primarily narrative portion of the book in Jeremiah 26-45). I have authored or co-authored Urban Legends of the Old Testament, The Message of the Twelve, 30 Days to Jeremiah/Lamentations, and the Essence of the Old Testament and have contributed to numerous other works, including the soon-to-be released, Baker Illustrated Bible Background Commentary. I have published in multiple journals and have contributed to two study Bibles. My wife Marilyn and I have been married for 35 years and have three adult children.
We are nearly caught up on old podcasts. I just really have to get around to uploading them. That blame lies with me. I hope you all are looking forward to it.
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Comics have always been a part of my life. I don’t mean the superheroes, although I did read Archie and TMNT and, of course, Nintendo comics growing up, but mainly comic strips. I still check to see the new Fox Trot every Sunday.
Peanuts was always an important part of that. I loved the adventures of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. I would regularly go to the library and check out Peanuts books for my reading and can still quote numerous strips to this day. I still need to watch the movie someday.
Peanuts also often had a decisively religious tone to it and not just religious, but specifically Christian. Linus was a brilliant young theologian who knew the most obscure Scriptural references and would bring to Sunday School items about the Dead Sea Scrolls and their impact on textual criticism. Charlie Brown’s fire truck just couldn’t compete.
And who can forget the first Charlie Brown Christmas special? The event that makes it for so many of us is that scene where Linus tells us what Christmas is all about by quoting Luke 2. To this day, over 50 years later, this show is still a classic.
But didn’t Charles Schulz abandon Christianity later in his life? Didn’t he become a secular humanist? What did he do in his comic strips exactly with Christianity? Is there anything we can learn from this?
To discuss these matters, I have brought on the author of A Charlie Brown Religion. I was looking for a good biography of Schulz one night and saw that one of the Schulz family members endorsed this one. It’s hard to argue against that recommendation! The author’s name is Stephen Lind and he’s my guest this Saturday.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Stephen Lind is an assistant professor of business at Washington and Lee University where he teaches courses on the entertainment industry and business communication. He has presented on his research worldwide – from academic conventions to Comic-Con. He holds a PhD in rhetoric from Clemson University, an MA in communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BS in speech (minor in philosophy) from Liberty University.
I hope you’ll be looking forward to this episode. I’ve always enjoyed Peanuts as I said so expect some of my fanboy to come out in this one. Let’s get set to talk about Snoopy and Charlie Brown!
What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL!
If there’s any problem that keeps people away from Christianity often, it’s the problem of evil. This is not to say that I think the argument has any real rational ground to stand on. What makes it so different is that it’s so emotionally compelling. Many of us when we encounter suffering that we think is unjust and serves no purpose struggle to understand God in it.
Here’s something to keep in mind though. Christians need to explain evil. Sure. The thing is that everyone else has to as well. Atheists and pantheists and panentheists and every other worldview has to give an answer for evil. Eliminating God doesn’t mean you don’t have to explain things. You still have to. Worldviews are meant to explain as much as possible.
So how does theism explain evil? Beyond that, how is it that Christian theism alone can explain evil in ways other beliefs can’t? To do that, I brought on someone I did get to meet once before and now is paving his own path and has a book out on the problem of evil. He is Dr. Ronnie Campbell and he is my guest Saturday.
So who is he?
According to his bio:
Ronnie Campbell (Ph.D.) has been involved in higher education since 2006, teaching courses in theology, philosophy, Bible, and apologetics. His research interests include God’s relationship to time, the problem of evil, the doctrine of the Trinity, and religious doubt. He is author of For Love of God: An Invitation to Theology (Emeth Press) and Worldviews and the Problem of Evil (Lexham Press), and he is co-editor with Christopher Gnanakan on the Zondervan Counterpoint book, Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God: Four Views. Ronnie has a forthcoming article on James Orr in Zondervan’s The History of Apologetics: A Biographical and Methodological Introduction. Ronnie lives in Gladys, VA, with his wife, Debbie, and four children.
This Saturday then, we will be talking about evil. We’re still working on past shows. Things are perhaps starting to get more normal around here so hopefully soon.
