Tag: abortion

Where Science and Gnosticism Meet

Do these two contradictory views have anything in common? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Gnosticism was one of the first great heresies of Christianity. Since the time of Plato, the material world had been downplayed in comparison to the immaterial world. Gnosticism continued this and it had a real problem with Christianity. Christianity held that God became incarnate in a body. Gnosticism was the view that all of matter was evil. When it met Christianity, it tried to say Jesus came to set us free from the lesser evil god who created matter and that lesser evil god was the God of the Old Testament.

Today, we have a movement that seems to be quite different. This is the idea that science is the supreme gateway to truth and science studies the material world. The material world is the real one and we need to get past any mention of anything that is so-called supernatural. (I question the use of the term)

I have been reading Nancy Pearcey’s excellent book Love Thy Body and started thinking about this. I can’t claim credit for everything then as her writing has been something that got my mind thinking about this. There will be a review of the book when I’m done and she is going to be on my show later this month.

Interestingly, where all of these meet is always connected with sex in some way. At this point, many of our friends in the sciences suddenly start to deny science. Let’s take a look at how.

Abortion is one of the first ones. If we look at the scientific evidence of what is in the womb, we have a human being. However, this is something very inconvenient for many people since it interferes with free sex and other such things, so something has to be done. Well, it might be a human, but it’s not a person. Scientific basis for the difference between a human being and a human person? It doesn’t exist. All of a sudden, many of our skeptical friends promoting abortion are interested in metaphysics and philosophy.

The next area is in homosexuality. You don’t have to be a super genius to tell that the man and the woman go together sexually. Simply put, A goes into B very well. Yet once again, we have an anti-scientific mindset going on here. Now I have no problem with people wanting to do research to see if there is anything genetic that leads to homosexuality or a proclivity to it, but there is one problem and one that Pearcey brings out very well.

When a person abandons a straight orientation and goes to a homosexual one, they are said to have found their true selves. Keep in mind that when doing this, they can sometimes leave behind a spouse and kids in tears and broken, but they do it anyway. This is looked at with applause as the person has realized who they really are. If a person ever abandons a homosexual orientation for a straight one or is a homosexual but lives married to someone of the opposite sex, they are said to loathe themselves and be denying themselves. Never are they celebrated as having found their true selves.

Question. What is the scientific test for the true self? Answer. There isn’t one. How is it known? It is based on how the person feels and on the reigning paradigm of the moment.

Despite all of this, I really consider the last one the most bizarre.

Now we get to the transgender movement. Often in apologetics, I find it amazing the things that one has to defend that one never thought they would have to defend. A few years ago I was stunned that we now have to actually convince people marriage is between a man and a woman. Today, we have to convince them that the man and the woman really are the man and the woman. The sign of bigotry today is to say that a man is actually a man.

In all other cases, we could look at the body and see how it works, but even here, we can just look and see what the body is. All the evidence that is physical for someone says that their DNA is male (or female) and their body is that of a male. This is the true scientific evidence. Unfortunately, all of this is denied. Why? The feelings contradict.

When these two contradict, one will have to be worked on and even if never fully altered, it will need to come under the control of the other. It will either be the body that determines the identity and we change the feelings, or it will be the feelings that determine the identity and we change the body. It is quite amazing that many in the scientific community, particularly internet atheists, think that the feelings are where the person’s true identity lies and you must change all the material reality to fit their feelings.

In this, they are like the Gnostics of old. We could say that transgenderism might be nothing new. It is just an old heresy wrapped up in new terminology and presented in a new way. Deny the reality of matter and go with the immaterial. The person’s feelings reign supreme.

Where does this end? Who knows. It was bizarre enough to redefine marriage, but now a person’s feelings are given more and more precedence and once that starts, I really don’t know how that will end.

Keep in mind, none of this says anything about how we treat such people in itself. People who are struggling with these issues do need to be treated with love and compassion. However, they also need to be worked with to accept reality. One will never have good results if they try to go against reality.

It’s also interesting that Christians that hold to a biblical view on all of these are the ones that are going with the science and yet, we’re seen as bigots for doing that. Could it possibly be that those who want to champion science are just extremely selective where they want to champion it? Could it be some really aren’t interested in following the evidence where it leads?

How we deal with this is what Pearcey tells us to do. Love thy body. The body is not an evil thing. It is a gift to be treasured and cherished. This is especially so since in Christianity, it is the temple of the Holy Spirit and God Himself became incarnated in a body.

Consider this thought. Suppose that Jesus is crucified and dies and is buried. The tomb is found empty on Sunday, but instead, Jesus is now appearing as a woman named Joanna. This would be something unusual, but I don’t think we could call it Christianity anymore. It would deny that there is something essential to the body. It can be changed to be whatever you want. It would bring into question the notion of identity. Was this truly Jesus? Is the fact that He was a man something accidental to who he is as a person or is the identity something that can be changed?

Throughout the incarnation, Jesus was Jesus and the body that went down came up again. Yes, it was new and glorified, but it was still the body of Jesus. So it is for us. Our bodies are not accidents. They are the first line of evidence we have of who we are. Start with the feelings and you can justify most any belief. Start with the body and you’re limited to reality.

I think I’ll go with reality.

I have no wish to be a science-denier.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

 

 

 

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/13/2018: Dr. George Delgado

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

Choice is awesome! Right? We’ve all been granted supposedly the freedom of choice. We have abortionists marching down the street talking about a woman’s right to choose. Now we have come so far that there is even an abortion pill. Who needs to go to a Planned Parenthood? Just be at home and pop the pill and boom, problem solved.

But what if you have regrets?

For instance, if you talk to people who have survived a suicide attempt, many of them have regretted the move immediately after they made the attempt. By then, it’s too late and measures must be taken to save them. What if you take the pill and down it and then think, “Oh my. What have I done?” Can there be anything done to help you?

Fortunately, Dr. George Delgado has a technique to reverse the effects of the abortion pill for those in need. That way, a child can be saved. Naturally, we know the pro-choice crowd has been thrilled with this because choice is such a wonderful thing and…

Wait.

You say they’re not?

That’s interesting.

Anyway, Dr. Delgado will be talking about his work and his organization this Saturday with me. We will have a one-hour podcast where we will discuss what we can do to further stop abortion. Of course, for that, we need to know more about who Dr. Delgado is. So who is he?

                                                                                   

According to his bio:

Dr. George Delgado is the medical director of APR and Culture of Life Services (COLFS) in San Diego County. He received his medical degree from the University of California, Davis and completed his residency at Santa Monica Hospital/UCLA. He is board certified in family medicine, hospice and palliative medicine, health care ethics, NaProTECHNOLOGY, and the Creighton Model for Natural Family Planning (NFP). He has been practicing family medicine since 1988.

Be warned since we’re talking about the abortion pill and such that this could contain some graphic information so if you have children around, you might want to hold off on this podcast until later.

We’ll be talking about what the pill is and what it does. Then we’ll be talking about Delgado’s plan to reverse the effects of the pill. What does it do and how does it work and are there any side-effects? Are we seeing healthy babies that survive the pill as a result of what Dr. Delgado is doing? What can be done to further help this project and why is it that the people on the left are upset about this? Are they not the people who are always saying that they support a woman’s right to choose? Why be upset if a woman decides to choose to reverse the effects of the abortion pill?

I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast and please considering going on iTunes and leaving a positive review of the show. I really delight in seeing what you think of the program. Hope you enjoy it!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Are Our Churches Teaching?

Are we really being equipped in our churches? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently on my show, I interviewed Clinton Wilcox, a pro-life speaker. He spoke about how if the church got really serious, we could end abortion. This was in the middle of a discussion about why this kind of topic is not normally talked about in churches. I realize there are some that do teach on such serious topics, but the majority I am afraid do not, at least in America.

You see, I can easily predict what you’re hearing in churches most often. Here’s how you deal with guilt. Here’s how you get along with your neighbor. Here’s how you become a better spouse. Nothing wrong with these messages to an extent, but they’re also nothing really unusual to the church. You can get a lot of these from self-help books.

What you can’t get from those is the Gospel. I mean more than just the forgiveness of sins, as great as that is, but also what difference does Christianity make and why is it true? These are questions that are asked every day in our culture. All we are doing often is presenting Christianity as if God is a means to be a better person or a means to get to Heaven.

Let’s talk about some examples. There’s a saying that one in three men in the church struggle with pornography. If you’re a man and you look to the right at church and see a man and he’s okay and to the left and see another man and he’s okay, you could be in trouble. A number of pastors even struggle with pornography. Question. When was the last time you heard a sermon on the sin of pornography and overcoming it?

Along those lines, we live in a culture where more and more young people are living together before they get married. Even older people getting divorced now are doing that. Question. When was the last time you heard a sermon on a Christian view on sex and marriage and why it matters and how you know it’s true?

Go even further and you have issues of homosexuality and transgenderism. This is being spoken of on the news most every day. So what of it? When was the last time you heard a sermon that tackled these issues?

Some could say that with abortion, some pastors could be scared because some women in the congregation have had abortions. Sure. You teach it anyway. Of course, how you teach it matters. A good pastor when teaching will indeed preach on the wickedness and evil of sin and won’t sugarcoat abortion. Yet at the same time, he will teach the awesomeness and greatness of grace and that healing and forgiveness are available for all.

What about other belief systems. It used to be that most people would never encounter an atheist. Now most all of us encounter them and if we don’t, we certainly see them in the media. Are you being told why you should believe that God exists? What difference does it make that He does? Are you being told about the historicity of the New Testament?

What about other belief systems. Now this could depend on your area to be fair. If you are a pastor in Utah, you had better be informed and preaching on Mormonism. It might not be the same in the suburbs of Detroit, but you do find whatever your congregation is most likely to encounter and speak on it.

All of this is simply discipleship. It’s helping us learn not just what we are to do but why we believe we do what we do. Do we do good just to do good? Is Christianity just about being a good person?

We live in an age where and more of our youth are going to college and falling away and more and more people are encountering objections they can’t answer. The church meanwhile is just becoming a social club. You go on Sundays because, well, that’s just what you do. It’s more of a tradition than an actual commitment to Christ.

Yet what if what Clinton said is true. What if we could end abortion if all the churches in America got serious? Is it worth it? Is it worth you getting serious? It’s great to have goals you want your church to accomplish, but what do you want to do yourself even if the church doesn’t go along?

Maybe you should do that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/6/2018: Clinton Wilcox

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

First off, for those wondering where the show has been, we had to reschedule our interview with Rosaria Butterfield again because of an illness on her part. As for Michael Heiser, he had power outages which I’m guessing were due to the snow. Again, we are rescheduling.

Now to get back to what’s coming up. January is a month I dedicate to the topic of abortion. For many of us, we tend to think abortion and Christianity don’t mix, and I agree. I don’t see how you can support abortion and be a Christian. Years ago at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics, Chuck Colson was a speaker and said that if anyone calls themselves a Christian and supports abortion, they need to check their faith at the door. At this, he got a standing ovation to which he was quite surprised seeing as he seems to usually get the opposite.

But sometimes you do meet that person who says they are a follower of Jesus and supports abortion.

Kira Shlesinger is the author of “Pro-Choice and Christian.” My wife found the book while she was surfing on Facebook one day. I immediately got in touch with Clinton Wilcox to see if he would like to read it. He promptly ordered it and wrote a review of it. We then discussed having him come on the show again to talk about it. In the interest of fairness, let it be known that I reached out to Shlesinger’s church to see if she’d be willing to come on and talk about her position with Clinton. I never received a reply.

Therefore, my guest this Saturday will be just Clinton Wilcox. I should also let it be known that I have not got to read the book yet myself. Our resources are limited and due to it being a new book, I could not order it at the library via interlibrary loan.

But let’s get to Clinton Wilcox. Who is he?

According to his bio:

Clinton Wilcox is a staff apologist with Life Training Institute and a certified speaker and mentor with Justice for All. Clinton specializes in training pro-life people to make the pro-life case more effectively and persuasively. Clinton is also a prolific writer. He has had two articles published with Christian Research Journal, with one forrthcoming, as well as having a forthcoming article published in Bioethics, one of the top five leading bioethics journals in the world, with co-authors Daniel Rodger and Bruce Blackshaw.

Can one be a Christian and support abortion? We often know how to respond to those outside the church who support abortion, but how do you respond to those inside? If one claims to follow Christ, is there anything different that can be said that would not normally be said?

This will be an interesting kick-off to our month on abortion and I hope that you will be a part of it. Again, I apologize for all the problems we’ve had with new shows. I hope nothing happens this time. Please consider going on iTunes also and leaving a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Death and Donation

What do I think of Scott Henderson’s book published by Pickwick Publishing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For most of us, it’s a no-brainer. You go to get a license or register to vote or something like that and you’re asked if you want to be an organ donor. Why not? After all, once you die, you’re not really going to need them. Might as well help someone out here? Scott Henderson certainly agrees with that, but at the same time, has a caution about the matter.

This caution is relevant to those of us who are Christians because we want to be consistently pro-life. We would not want an innocent baby put to death to harvest its organs. What about someone who is possibly dying? Could it be that death is being pronounced too early just so we can get to the organs?

It’s quite interesting that once when I was reading this, I took my wife to see the sleep doctor about some tests to see if she has sleep apnea. The doctor saw the image and asked about what I was reading. I told her and gave her some of the main thesis and she immediately replied that brain death is the time that someone is said to be definitively dead.

The problem for that is that’s the very claim that Henderson goes on to question. Is brain death a settled matter? Could this be a question that needs a little bit more looking into?

Henderson looks at the history of organ transplants, focusing mainly on 1968. From there, he goes on to present what happened with the history and problems, such as how sometimes when organs have been in the process of being gathered, there is actually some resistance on the part of some patients. In this section, he mainly relies on medical scholarship.

People like myself will be much more interested in questions of dualism that he raises. This is where we get into if a person has a soul or not and what constitutes being a person. Henderson has said that he thinks that the organ donation issue is one where we are not consistently pro-life and we know the artificial category of being a human but not being a person has been used as a weapon against the pro-life community.

Many people who are involved in pro-life apologetics will especially appreciate this section and I found it timely as I have been going through an advanced copy of Nancy Pearcey’s Love Thy Body on Kindle at the same time and she is making much of the problematic dualism we have, not arguing against the body/soul idea, but a radical disjunction between the two.

Henderson is not opposed to organ donation, as I know through personal conversation, but he is saying we want to make sure the person is truly dead first. Perhaps it is time to re-open this discussion. We want to make sure life is the best for all. Killing a patient early in one area can very easily lead to doing the same in other areas. There’s no need to risk it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Me Too And The Failed Revolution

Has the sexual revolution ultimately failed women? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Have you seen the “Me Too” movement going around Facebook and other places? It’s because of people like Harvey Weinstein and letting women be able to share that they have suffered sexual abuse of some kind from people in their lives. It is quite surprising to me to see how many people are included in this and even in Hollywood we’re seeing women come out and admit that there is a problem and turning down time with a guy like Weinstein cost them in their acting careers as he would give a role to someone else then.

One of the things the sexual revolution was supposed to do was to make women equal. Now in a sense of course, women can never be equal to men and men can never be equal to women, but that is not because one is superior and one is inferior, but because both are different. Ask anyone who has been married for any length of time and they know that men and women are different.

For instance, in general, when a woman has a problem, she wants to talk about how she feels about it at first, while the guy wants to go and solve the problem immediately. A guy will often want sex just because and he needs to feel sex because that’s how he feels connected to his wife. The woman will want sex when she feels connected. A woman is much more relationship-oriented and a guy is often much work task-oriented. These are generalities of course as there are exceptions in every case, but one would have to be a fool to think that men and women are not different.

Yet where gender is irrelevant to some things, there is nothing wrong with striving for equality between men and women. In fact, with the movement of women’s suffrage prior, I think we were already moving there. One of the problems though was sex. Women wanted to have careers, but that problem of being a mother would creep up.

The problem was not the pill then, but it was more the desire behind it. Sometimes women came to see being a mother as a less than noble calling. Of course, some couples can’t have children for whatever reason and that’s fine, but then we went a step farther. While Christians can debate the pill back and forth, there is one issue that they should not have to debate within themselves, but they sadly do often, and that’s abortion.

Abortion has become such a law of the land that when we see a mass shooting take place in Las Vegas, we ask how such an evil could happen blind to the idea of how many babies we are killing every day in Planned Parenthood. If we have such a callous attitude towards life in its most innocent place, why should we expect it to be different elsewhere? With abortion, we are actually even worse than the people of the past who offered up their children in sacrifice. At least we could say they did it because they wanted a good harvest for their people. We sacrifice our children at the altar of convenience.

It’s quite odd because this doesn’t empower women. It destroys women. Abortion is one of the most anti-women acts out there. Around 50% of its victims are women. It also results in a woman killing her own children legally, the very opposite of what a mother is to do. She can say she’s not ready to be a mother, but as soon as she is pregnant, she is a mother. The choice is if she wants to kill her own children or not.

Not only that, in all of this, men stayed men. From the dawn of humanity, men have been attracted to women. Women have been seen as the great mystery to men and the wonder that they cannot explain. If it wasn’t for sex, men would not get married because when they marry, they have an extra expense and they have to sacrifice their time and money for someone else. There has to be a good incentive for the man, at least at first, to compel him to enter this relationship. Sex is a good incentive.

This is also why I personally follow the Pence Rule. (Yes. I know it does not originate with him) Why should I risk myself with another woman? Is it because I don’t trust others? Not really. I don’t trust myself. The moment I say I am above temptation and cannot fall to it, I already have.

Last month, we had another man staying at our place here who was a refugee from Hurricane Irma. He’s a Christian who wanted to learn some apologetics, but I also wanted to teach him how a man is to love a woman and a husband is to treat a wife, and indeed he did learn a lot of good from that. One rule we consistently followed is that if I went anywhere, he came with me. It was a way of respect and avoiding temptation.

You see, even a man who is happily married can still look at other women and be tempted and wonder. It’s not because we don’t love our wives. It’s just that’s the way that a man is wired. I’m not saying that it is at all right, but that is the way it is. A man was made to look at the human female form and to admire it and to desire it.

Normally, a man who has wanted that has had to be serious about it because the action could always result in pregnancy. Now, that is much less of a factor and the men are still men and women too often have sadly let themselves be used in this way to get ahead in their minds. Some women have an idea that if they give the men in their lives sex, they will either love them or get what they want.

For love, often if a couple engages in sex too early, such as without being married, their emotional build-up in the commitment will halt and possibly not even grow at all beyond that. They don’t get to really see each other as they are because they see each other for sex first. Note also a man will lose respect for a woman. After all, if she gave herself to me this early, how many other men has she done this with? Many men say they want virgins, but they will happily sleep with a woman. It quite likely means they don’t see her as marriage material, but just there for a good time.

This is one reason I encourage women to let the man know how much you are worth. Don’t pay in advance as it were. If a man really wants you, he will be willing to make a lifetime commitment to you in marriage and have that commitment done before the deed is done. If he is not, then you have to ask if he really wants you or not. Why should you settle for less than a lifetime commitment?

Abortion made this too easy and as I said, the men have stayed the same. Very rarely do you have an explicit statement of this, but there is such a one. It is one written by a Ben Sherman years ago about the #HB2 bill in Texas. The bill would make it much more difficult to get an abortion. As Sherman says:

Your sex life is at stake. Can you think of anything that kills the vibe faster than a woman fearing a back-alley abortion? Making abortion essentially inaccessible in Texas will add an anxiety to sex that will drastically undercut its joys. And don’t be surprised if casual sex outside of relationships becomes far more difficult to come by.

Those of us who are pro-life owe a thanks to Sherman for saying this. If having sex with a woman could actually mean that a man has to take responsibility for the action, he is much more prone to not do so. This is one reason I am so confused by so many “feminists” who want abortion and don’t seem to realize that that better enables men to just use them.

This is what happened with Weinstein. He came to see women as objects of pleasure and nothing more instead of valuable persons in themselves. Let’s be clear also that this is not to say that men and women should not both enjoy the gift of sexual intimacy together. It is a wonderful gift and meant to be embraced in a marriage commitment. There’s a claim also that before marriage, the devil will do anything to get a couple to have sex. Afterward, he will do anything to keep them from having sex.

In marriage, sex is not the reason for the marriage, but it is hard to have a good marriage without it. Sexuality becomes more than just pleasure, but it solidifies the covenant between the man and the woman. Every time it is the man and woman coming together and each of them giving their complete trust and love to the other in a sacrifice. It is an exclusive relationship shared with only those two people and way they know each other that no one else does.

Treating women as consumer goods destroys their sacred value. This is another reason that pornography is such a problem. Let’s be clear that men want to see a woman naked and there is indeed nothing wrong with that desire. God made women to be beautiful and He succeeded greatly and there is just something absolutely amazing and gripping about the human female form.

Unfortunately, porn makes it easy for a man to get the benefits supposedly of being with a woman without the real sacrifice of being with one. You know, things like pursuing a relationship, spending time and money, proposing, and making a lifetime commitment. The more a man does this, the easier it is for him to see women as objects. In fact, it damages their marriages later on. Many men have seen so many women in porn magazines that a real woman in front of them doesn’t arouse them for sex and they have to take viagra in their 20’s just to be able to have sex.

(By the way, this is not to deny that women can’t watch porn and women can’t just as much treat men as objects. That too is a problem that needs to be dealt with, but right now I’m really wanting to focus on the problem of the victimhood of women.)

When we make a mockery of sexual purity and virtue and treat sex like a consumer good, why are we surprised to have someone like Weinstein in our midst? I hear the news and I’m not shocked in the least by it. Despite the sexual revolution, women are far more prone to be treated as objects than they were in the past.

When we encourage virtue instead, we might be surprised what happens. Believe it or not men, it’s possible to still have a good sex life and be virtuous. Sure, you have sex with only one woman until death do you part, but that is not seen as a downside. It becomes an ever increasing joy as you come to learn how to love and delight in the woman more and more and you come to love each other more and things get better and better. It is one area where the Law of Diminishing Returns doesn’t apply. A game or an act can get old after awhile, but truly a person never does.

For women who are abused, we need to be there for them and loving them and comforting them and if abuse is affecting your marriage and other relationships today, please go and talk to a qualified counselor. It is possible to overcome the past and you don’t need to be a continued victim of the people who hurt you in the past. If you are abused, it can be scary to come forward, but please do come forward. Silence will never end abuse. You deserve better than that. You are not just an object. You are loved.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/21/2017: Christopher Kaczor

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

As I have been saying, in January I try to devote the podcast to abortion. This Saturday is no exception. I’ve had some friends from the Christian Apologetics Alliance come on to talk about abortion, but I decided I needed to get one guest from outside of there. I wanted someone who is first-rate and has thought deeply about the issue of abortion.

That someone has done extensive reading on the topic and is a recognized scholar and has appeared on several programs. He is a professor of Philosophy as well meaning a skill in learning how to think on the issues. He is also the author of the book The Ethics of Abortion and his name is Christopher Kaczor.

Who is he?

Kaczor

Dr. Christopher Kaczor (rhymes with razor) is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University.  He is a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life of Vatican City and the James Madison Society of Princeton University. He graduated from the Honors Program of Boston College and earned a Ph.D. four years later from the University of Notre Dame. A Fulbright Scholar,  Dr. Kaczor is a former Federal Chancellor Fellow at the University of Cologne and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.  His twelve books include The Gospel of Happiness, The Seven Big Myths about Marriage,  A Defense of Dignity,  The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, The Ethics of Abortion, O Rare Ralph McInerny: Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor, Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues; Life Issues-Medical Choices; Thomas Aquinas on Faith, Hope, and Love; The Edge of Life, and Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition. Dr. Kaczor’s views have been in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, National Review, NPR, BBC, EWTN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, TEDx, and The Today Show.

We’ll be talking about the case for abortion and noting that the case is not really a religious issue. There are Christians (I don’t know how) who say they are for abortion and there are atheists who are against it. Therefore, we need to make this an issue not dependent on any religious tradition but just what the facts are.

We’ll look at numerous arguments given for abortion and how to reason about the subject. One that I particularly want to deal with is the question of supposed you’re in a lab and there is a dish with ten embryos and there is one fully grown janitor there and there’s a fire. Are you going to get the janitor our or the embryos? We’ll also be discussing perhaps if artificial wombs could ever end the debate, or would it just create more difficulties?

I hope you’ll be joining me this Saturday for the latest episode and remember to please like and share the Deeper Waters Podcast. If you haven’t left a review, please go and leave one on ITunes. I love to see them!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/14/2017: Elijah Thompson

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

Last week, we had Ty Benbow come on and talk about abortion and we had a wonderful talk about women who are seeking to get an abortion and about our need to reach out to these people. This Saturday, we’re going to keep going down the path and I will be interviewing some friends for the Christian Apologetics Alliance. Our focus in January is on the topic of abortion and I will be bringing someone on who does focus on that topic. This week, our guest is Elijah Thompson who has his own podcast on this.

So who is he?

ElijahThompson

Elijah Thompson is the host of The Fetal Position, a pro-life bioethics podcast dedicated to having open and honest discussions about abortion (and related topics) from a pro-life perspective. His goal is to promote the equality of all human beings, not because of what they can do, but because of who they are. He believes that human life and human rights ought to respected, from womb to tomb. Elijah graduated with a bachelor’s in biology and a minor in philosophy, so he found bioethics to be an easy fit for his academic interests, and has experience working with cell cultures (including stem cells). He currently lives with his wife and two sons in Buffalo, NY, and attends a church where he and his wife both volunteer as youth leaders.

Elijah also considers his show to be a secular show. How does that work? Can there be arguments that are “secular” against abortion? That will be something I plan on discussing on the show.

What does it mean to be a human being? If we are equal based not on what we do, but on who we are, then who are we? What is it about us that makes us human? What is it that the unborn possess just like us that makes us human as well?

What is the violinist argument and what does Elijah have to say to it that he thinks is unique? We’ll also be talking about tweetable answers. Many of us know that twitter is in the news a lot with the usage of president-elect Trump of it. Can Christians use twitter to make substantial comments on the abortion debate? We have been told in politics that important policies cannot be argued in 140 characters. Is that wrong? Could it be that we could use that many characters to make a successful argument against abortion?

I’m quite thankful to have friends who are willing to come on the show and I hope introducing you to some new minds on the issues can give you some new ideas and hope that there are others out there fighting the fight against abortion. I hope that you will be looking forward to the new episode. (Also, we have fixed the link to the show so your ITunes feed should be full now.) Please also considering going on ITunes and leaving a positive review of the show.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/7/2017: Ty Benbow

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

January is here. This is a month that many of us will think about the abortion industry. After all, Roe V. Wade was decided this month in 1973 and here we are years ago and the silent holocaust is still going on in America. In January, I tend to devote all of my shows to the topic of abortion. I haven’t always done perfect, but it is the hope.

This month, I also asked around for friends in the area of apologetics specializing in abortion. I found three who were willing to come on. I hope then to introduce you to some new names in this field and new resources that you can use. One guest this month will be someone already well known in the field but for the others, I want to give my friends a chance to shine.

So who’s up first?

Meet Ty Benbow.

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According to his bio:

Ty Benbow is a professor and emerging author originally from Muncie, Indiana.

He graduated with a BA in Psychology from Wabash College in 2008, and later received his M.Div. from Anderson University School of Theology in 2011.

He currently serves in the Church Ministry Department at Warner University in Lake Wales, Florida where he teaches courses on Understanding the Old Testament and Life of Christ.

His debut novel “I’m Not Real” was published by Charisma Media in Lake Mary, Florida. INR was released on January 22nd, 2016, the 43rd anniversary of Roe v Wade.

Ty, his wife Riley, and daughter Berkeley currently reside in Winter Haven, Florida.

Ty has an approach where he seeks to get inside the head of a woman who is seeking an abortion. What is going on? We might be too quick to write someone off like this for negative reasons. Sure. We can all agree that the action is sinful, but we all do things that are wrong and we all think we have good reasons to do those things that are wrong. Ty will help us try to understand what is going on.

And what is the church to do? Ty has a hope that the church will become more proactive in this field. One complaint often given is that the church doesn’t really care about the child so long as the child isn’t aborted. Are we looking for signs of women in our community even who could be considering abortion and how to help them? There are a number of women who go to get abortions who identify as Christians after all.

This will be a serious month no doubt as abortion is a serious issue and since I’m not a specialist in the topic, I’m honored to be joined by people who do focus on that topic. It is my hope that you will be equipped better to talk with the people in your life who are considering abortion or have had one. We can be like Christ for those people who are struggling with the help of these people.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Book Plunge: The Ethics of Abortion

What do I think of Christopher Kaczor’s book published by Routledge? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Kaczor’s book on abortion is a rather surprising one, and that’s a good thing. He starts out by laying out the parameters of the discussion. He wants to make it clear that his goal is not to antagonize people who have had an abortion and paint them out as monsters. He wants to make sure we know we are making a statement about an action and not about the people who do an action.

Kaczor’s book is systematically outlined to go through all the arguments that he can. He deals with the concept of personhood and why the human embryo even should be seen as a fully human person with rights equal to yours and mine. He regularly interacts with defenders of abortion and for those concerned that this is just a religious rant, he does it without appealing to the arguments of a particular religion. His arguments are scientific and philosophical.

For my money, the best part of the book is the sixth chapter. In this, Kaczor deals with many of the objections that will often be raised up against the pro-life movement. Some, such as the case of twinning, can be dealt with in many other works. Some, I’m not used to seeing talked about. For instance, Kaczor talks about the scenario of being in a burning building and being given the chance to save five adults or ten embryos and points out that most of us would save the adults. Are we being inconsistent? Kaczor presents a powerful argument as to why this is so. (And yes, I don’t tell it because I think you need to go out there and get the book yourself.)

Kaczor also interacts with questions such as asking if contraception is the same thing as abortion. He comes down on a side that is very favorable towards contraception when properly used. I found this to be a quite interesting take on the matter and helped deal with something that is often leveled especially against Protestants who are pro-life.

Kaczor has a final chapter dealing with the idea of artificial wombs. If science were to invent something like this, would this end the abortion debate? Kaczor seems to think it would certainly help so perhaps some scientifically minded people out there who are pro-life might want to consider this. Of course, Kaczor wants to make sure these actions are not done for frivolous reasons and does criticize that too often abortions take place for those reasons. One such example he gives is sex-selective abortion.

Kaczor’s book is a thorough takedown of the pro-abortion position and yet at the same time incredibly fair. He does not demonize his opponents and tries to present their arguments in the best possible light. Kaczor is certainly systematic and rigorous. If you are interested in learning about the best in pro-life argumentation, you owe it to yourself to read Kaczor’s book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters