Month: November 2013

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/9/2013: Greg Ganssle

What’s coming up this Saturday on the Deeper Waters podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Last Saturday, we had David Wood as our guest to talk about the problem of evil, and it was an excellent show. Saturday, we’re going to be discussing that again, except this time we’re going to have Greg Ganssle come on to join us.

Ganssle is an accomplished author on numerous subjects relating to God and the new atheism, and we could move over into some of those in fact, and will be joining us mainly to talk about evil, seeing as it’s a big topic and we couldn’t possibly cover it in one show that easily.

So why mention David Wood at the start? Because David Wood when he heard that Ganssle was going to be on this week said that “Greg’s the man.” I hope that when you tune in and listen to the show that you will also agree that Greg’s the man.

The problem of evil has often been seen as a difficult one for Christians and it’s difficult not so much because of the logical difficulties, which really aren’t there, but rather for the existential and emotional difficulties. It’s normal for so many of us to look at evil in the world and conclude that there isn’t a good God out there. Sadly, those who conclude that are also ignoring the only hope that we truly have for eliminating evil entirely.

Greg will help us to think through these issues as well as see how they relate to the question of atheism and explain for us if the new atheists really do have some substance to what they’re saying. We’ll also talk some probably about how one should properly think about God in light of the problem of evil.

Perhaps also we’ll get more into a pastoral side on this episode. How is it that someone who is going through evil can really see God in it? How could it be that a good God would really allow this kind of suffering? Why isn’t God doing anything about the problem?

The problem of evil has been one that has been with us for thousands of years and it is one that unfortunately keeps many people away from Christianity, but it is not insurmountable and it has been regularly answered. Ganssle’s work is one such attempt at answering it and I hope that as you listen in, you will find that you are blessed by getting to hear a way to cope with the problem of evil and see how it could be reconciled with the God that is professed to be the one true God in Christianity and what the Christian answer is to the problem of evil.

So please be listening in this Saturday to the Deeper Waters Podcast to hear Greg Ganssle speak on the problem of evil and on other topics that are related to this important one. The show airs from 3-5 PM EST this Saturday, November 9th, 2013. A link can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Hitler’s Christianity

Can we say Hitler was a Christian? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

My ministry partner, J.P. Holding, sent me this book he wrote for my own review of it. While he has long held that Hitler wasn’t a Christian (And for that matter, wasn’t an atheist either), this book marked some in-depth research done on the topic of Christianity, since while Hitler wasn’t a Christian, he did make claims to be one.

As it turns out, the Nazi movement instead had a teaching called Positive Christianity. This would be a cult of Christianity that went so much against the Jewishness that existed in the Bible that even Marcion would not recognize the Bible.

Deeply revealing in the book is the idea of the way the German church was at the time of the rise of Hitler. Critical scholarship had been undermining the text, there was not a major emphasis on doctrine and most churches were not well-informed on doctrine, and charismatic speakers could easily win the day.

Also, there was the strong emphasis on nationalism as the German people saw themselves in a unique position. I find this a timely warning since I myself am a strong conservative who holds to conservative political viewpoints as well and who does love my country, but we should not equate conservatism in politics with orthodoxy in Christianity. I know several Christians who are political liberals. I disagree with them on that issue, but I do not deny that they are true Christians.

Holding in the book takes a deep look at what Positive Christianity believed and also at some of the most important figures in the Nazi movement. He also warns against sources that are not reliable that often try to paint out Hitler to be an occultist. While there were people in the Nazi party who had an interest in the occult, Hitler was not one of them.

Also, Holding covers issues that could be raised in objection such as the idea that the Nazis had emblems that said “God with us.” He also answers the question about why it is that the Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler.

Furthermore, there’s a section in there on the NT and asking if it is anti-semitical. Holding takes the works of leading scholars on the passages most often used by those who want to say the NT is an anti-semitical document and shows that these positions do not stand up to scrutiny.

It’s important for us to take a look at Hitler in his time and context in history and not read our ideas into what he said. Also, we must realize that as a politician as well, Hitler could say things that were politically advantageous without having them really be accurate.

If there was one area I would like to have seen addressed, it would have been the charge that much of what Hitler got came from Martin Luther supposedly. That is the only aspect that I did not see covered that I would have liked to have seen something on. On the other hand, many atheists should be surprised and hopefully pleased to realize that Holding does not base the holocaust on evolutionary theory as well, as I think there’s only one section where it really says anything about Darwinism.

In conclusion, I recommend this book. It will be necessary reading for any who engage atheists on the topic of if Hitler was a Christian or not.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

God, Please Kill My Enemy

How can the Bible speak about the longing for the death of your enemies? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Yesterday, I wrote a review of N.T. Wright’s book “The Case for the Psalms” and so I figured I’d start looking at the Psalms. Why not have some fun and start out with the category of Psalms that we consider to be the hardest? These are Psalms called Imprecatory Psalms.

Imagine living in America during World War 2 and going to a church and when the songs start playing, before too long you find out that you’re singing a song where you’re asking God to kill Hitler. While you could justifiably think that the villain should be dead, you seem a bit out of place singing about this at a church.

Yet when we open up the Psalms, we find the cries for the death of enemies and not just national enemies always, but personal enemies as well. A number of times these strike us as odd to find in the Psalms. Isn’t God the God of peace and love? How could it be that His holy book would contain Psalms like this?

For instance, consider the cry of Psalm 5:10

Declare them guilty, O God!
Let their intrigues be their downfall.
Banish them for their many sins,
for they have rebelled against you.

This is such a hard teaching for us to accept! After all, are we not to forgive one another for sins and shouldn’t God be the main one to do this? Why would we pray that someone would actually be judged for their sins? Isn’t this wrong.

Only if you think judging is wrong.

The Psalmist in this case is praying for justice for what he has suffered, but he’s not just pointing to his own suffering, but pointing out in the whole psalm that he has lived a righteous life while his enemies have not. Why should the wicked have the same place with YHWH as the righteous? Why should they get the same treatment?

And this is still our cry today! We often ask why do bad things happen to good people? When evil people suffer, we can expect that and it fits in, but when people we think are good suffer, then we just don’t know what to do. It is as if something is wrong, but the only way we can say something is wrong is if we are willing to admit the world should be a certain way, that the world should be just.

Another example is in Psalm 107.

“6 Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven[a] from their ruined homes.
11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
15 May their sins always remain before the Lord,
that he may blot out their name from the earth.”

Tough words indeed, but yet the Psalmist is again wanting justice in contrast to the life he has lived. Note also that this is a good Middle Eastern way of handling the situation. We today in the West tend to hide our emotions and store them up. It seems like a fine situation until someone cracks one day and gets “road rage” or “goes postal” or something of that sort. Buried hurts don’t go away. They just wait for a time to resurface.

The Middle Easterners instead sought to express their emotions openly and powerfully for the most part. When a person died in the family, you would have professional mourners come by. It’s not that they felt loss or sympathy necessarily for the family, but they were to show the sadness of the people by their mourning. Some of this Christ condemned such as the Pharisees putting on a face to show that they were fasting. Expression done just to draw attention to one’s self was a problem. That would be a way of stealing honor in fact. Expression done to bring glory to God was what was commendable.

Why include the family? Simple. This would shame the person involved. Aristotle, for instance, thought that someone’s happiness in life could be altered after they were dead, and this was from someone who believed you ceased to exist when you died! How could your happiness change? Because your descendants could ruin the good reputation you’d built up. The prayer was for this person to be shamed.

We see an example of this in the book of Jeremiah. We are told that may it be for Jehoiachin that he will be remembered as childless and none of his children take the throne. Childlessness was seen as a curse. In 2 Kings 5, the leprosy of Naaman is said to cling to Gehazi and his descendants forever. In the ancient world, your ancestry mattered much more than it does here and having suffering in the lives of your children would show what a wicked soul you were.

Yet there is one such Psalm that most always gets mentioned by atheists.

It is Psalm 137 with this part.

“7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard Psalm 137 used, I could probably retire right now.

So what is going on here? Why would someone be happy for dashing children against rocks?

In the Psalm, the captives of Judah are in Babylon and being mocked by Babylon. “Sing us a song of that great city of your God that we so royally destroyed!” These people were living in exile far away from their own homes and had seen destruction of their loved ones right before their eyes.

So what do they say? Let justice be done and the same measure done to you that was done to us. Not more. Not less. This was a typical Middle Eastern expression. Note also they’re not telling others to do this nor thinking of doing it themselves. They are pleading to God for this justice.

What are we to make of this today?

First off, justice is still a cry in this world. Whenever anyone speaks of the problem of evil, they are speaking of justice. If you do not think there is such a thing as justice, then you cannot say anything about the problem of evil.

Second, we can learn that all manner of expression, even that which we deem to be negative, is acceptable to God. This does not mean the way we express it always is. Blasphemy is always wrong. What it does mean is that God is interested in the cries of our hearts. In fact, later on, we’ll see in future blogs that even God Himself is spoken of accusingly, and He accepts it.

Third, we understand that ultimately, God is the place to go to for justice. Of course, there are times of self-defense and just war and such, but all justice comes from God even if it comes through secondary causes such as the institutions of man. For the ancients, all causality ultimately ended in God. The supernatural/natural distinction did not exist.

Fourth, we understand the cry for justice is good. God wants us to cry for justice and has promised that He will hear those who do make that cry.

When we look at it in regards to Israel’s place in history, there is grounds for believing in a future judgment somehow and a place in an afterdeath. After all, death would ultimately be the same for everyone in a materialistic universe. You die. That’s it. For there to be a true reversal of judgment would require some compensation after death, perhaps even a resurrection for some.

To long for this was also to believe that the God of Israel was to be on the side of Israel and would bring about righteousness for Israel and act on the behalf of Israel. It meant the promise to Abraham would be fulfilled. Those who blessed Abraham would be blessed. Those who cursed him would be cursed.

Many of us have enemies today and we cry out to God about them. The reality is, that’s not necessarily a wrong thing. There is no wrong in wanting justice despite what our society says, but if God does not act, it could be He has in motion the way of redemption for someone. Judgment is a work of God, but He would much rather forgive to those who are willing. Let’s remember God is a God of justice, but the same God had said of Him “In wrath, remember mercy.”

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Case For The Psalms

Do Christians today really need the Psalms? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

As readers of this blog know, N.T. Wright’s work is just gold to me. N.T. Wright brings so much life to the biblical text by sharing the historical context making it a deeper and deeper work to be appreciated. In fact, Wright was a major influence in getting me to switch my major to NT.

Yet in his book “The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential”, Wright turns to this important OT book, a book I honestly rarely see scholars engaging with, except for how it relates to the NT. Wright does some of that, but he also brings out the importance of it on its own.

The Psalms we must remember were the hymns of the early church and the first Christians. They were before Christ, the embodiment of the hope of Israel. They longed for what it is we all longed for and what was ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

Of course, this is not to say that new songs should not be written. Indeed, they should be. Yet so many of our songs lack the rich depth that can be found in the Psalms. How many of the songs we sing in church today really usher us into the amazement of knowing God in Christ? I can say that one that certainly does it for me today is “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Whenever I hear that song, I simply have to sit down. I can’t stand and sing that song. I am humbled every time I hear it with the recognition that God is holy and without Him, I am not. With my interest in theology also, I am deeply appreciative that a song says “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”

Perhaps our songs could learn something from the Psalms with the Psalms being the archetype that we all draw from when it comes to writing new songs today. These songs should embody our hopes that the Psalms themselves embodied. Wright goes into three areas.

First, the Psalms all hoped that God would redeem time. Many a Psalm points back to events when the God of Israel acted in the past in order to bring about a people. The reason of course was so that God could bring about a great future and that future had not yet come. Thus, the Israelites were living with a hope for the future and that hope was in the present unrealized.

Many of us today can still pray “How long O Lord? How long?” Yet the Psalmists were in many ways saying the exact same prayer and their stark honesty is refreshing. At times, the Psalmist chooses to point the finger not at fallen humanity or the devil or forces of evil, but at God Himself. Why is God doing or not doing something? The Psalms would be a way of saying to God the promises He had made and looking with the hopeful future trust if not present trust that He would bring them about.

Second, the Psalms hoped that God would redeem space. The land of Israel was the sacred land to the people. Yet at times they had been removed from the land and when they returned, they were still in exile as a foreign power was in charge.

Not only that, where did God exactly dwell? That was a question. God had made His presence known in the Temple? Where was He when the temple was not there? How they longed for it! This is of course fulfilled in the NT when we have the living temple of Jesus come and then we read in 1 Corinthians that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, they longed for God to redeem matter. It is a gnostic view that this world is evil. Christianity says the world is good, but something has gone wrong with this good world. We can often get at the environmentalist movement for worshiping the creation seemingly, and some do, but we should not lose sight that this creation is the creation of God and it is good and He has a purpose for it.

All these three are still often our hopes and a work like this has taught me I need to go back and reread the Psalms and see the hope of Israel in them. It is not only myself but all of us who do. We need to look at the Psalms and ask why each Psalm was written and what was the purpose and notice the nuances of the beautiful poetry therein.

So once again, I am in debt to N.T. Wright for helping me to look at a portion of Scripture afresh. I am never disappointed by a work of Wright. May he write many more works and may God bless us with more scholars of the heart and caliber of N.T. Wright.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters 11/2/2013 David Wood

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it.

Evil is an ever present reality in our lives and it is a great reason so many people come against the Christian faith. I would honestly say this objection is the most gripping one of all because it is often not only logical, but emotional. Most of us have times where our emotion can overpower our reason. Suffering can be one of those times.

My guest on the Deeper Waters Podcast episode for November 2nd is here to help! David Wood has been a member of Mike Licona’s Dream Team and has just recently finished his doctorate where he dealt with the problem of evil. David comes at this from a position of having seen evil directly himself and having come from a tough background as we will hopefully hear about on the show today.

We will be talking about all manner of evil on the show today and how it is that Christians are to respond. We have recently heard about shootings in this country. What are we to do when we hear of those? How does the existence of an all-good and all-powerful and all-knowing God cohere with the reality that is evil in our world?

Are we to just give a simplistic answer to people to just tell them to have faith? The challenge is real and my guest can really handle it. He has even debated the topic before with John Loftus of Debunking Christianity and might I add, put on a splendid performance as well, and this was even before he had had his doctorate on this passed.

David Wood has been debating with atheists for a long time and not only that, I consider him a good friend. He has helped my own family out in a number of ways which tells me that this is a problem he seeks to deal with for most everyone else and I am sure that you will find his perspective to be a quite unique one.

I also hope that what is said will be taken to heart. We will deal with many objections throughout the episode and there might be times when it’s not fitting for someone to hear. If you’re in extensive suffering right now, for instance, and caught up in it emotionally, chances are the logical problem of evil solution is just not the one that you need to hear right now. A lot of times on a show like this (And I have debated this topic on Unbelievable? so I know from experience) it can be asked how this helps those who are suffering now. It might not, but it does prepare you for the suffering that you will eventually be facing soon.

Please be listening then to Dr. David Wood on the Deeper Waters Podcast today from 3-5 PM EST. The call in number if you want to ask something on this important topic is 714-242-5180. The link to the show can be found here

In Christ,
Nick Peters