Category: Apologetics

Book Plunge: The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 6

What about God in the Old Testament? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Iqbal now turns to the Old Testament. The first part worth noting is when he talks about how Mark 1 quotes Isaiah. Iqbal points out that this quotation is actually a combination of a quotation from Isaiah and Malachi. He ignores that there is actually scholarship on composite quotations which occur not just in Jewish and Christian writings, but in writings in greater Greco-Roman antiquity.

He also says Jesus never refers to Himself as the Son of Man. This is a strange argument because it assumes the only way He can is if He comes out and says “I am the Son of Man.” He also rarely says “I am the Messiah.” One example that shows Jesus saw Himself as this figure is in Matthew 19 when He tells the disciples that they will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. It’s thought to be authentic since He says the twelve will which would be problematic with what Judas did. The question is, “If the apostles sit on twelve thrones, where does Jesus sit?”

There is some discussion on what the word Echad means. He does say that it can refer to a compound one, but sometimes it doesn’t.

Okay.

But sometimes it does.

Thus, just saying echad isn’t sufficient to show that this is a one that is absolutely solitary in nature. You can point out that there are many cases where this doesn’t happen and yet, that doesn’t matter. Each time it is to be interpreted based on the context of that passage.

He also asks why it refers to three in the case of God if that is the case. Why not three?

Because three persons is the number revealed throughout the Bible….

He says that the plural means the plural of majesty. In some cases, I am open to that entirely. In some cases, it doesn’t apply. Why should I think echad refers to a plural of majesty? Iqbal gives me no reason to think so.

He also says that Paul explicitly says he didn’t get information from the original apostles of Jesus on the gospel. He ignores that in Galatians 1, Paul speaks to them and presents the gospel to make sure that his race had not been run in vain. I can’t help but wonder if Iqbal has ever truly read the New Testament for himself.

So once again, we have a Muslim who tries to argue against the Trinity and really demonstrates he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. When dealing with these arguments, I tend to hit only the highlights….errr…..lowlights? It would be too much to go over every argument and some of them have been done over and over again and I try to trust on newish arguments that I have not dealt with before.

But, there are other books, so we will soon begin going through another such book sometime to see what else Muslims have to say on the topic.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 5

Can the Trinity withstand examination? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You know a chapter is not going to go well when this is one of the earliest points you see.

1 + 1 + 1 = 1.

It gets worse when you see Iqbal describe this as a great challenge.

No. It’s an ignorant one. It also assumes that every Trinitarian mind in history has never noticed that 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 and somehow at all the biblical councils that this basic fact escaped notice. As someone who loves math, let’s try a different one.

1x + 1x + 1x = 1y.

You would have to know what X and Y are to answer this one. Either way, this is also NOT a description of the Trinity anyway. The Trinity is not that if you add up three persons, you get one God, as if each person was a part of God. Ugh. No person of the Trinity is 33.3% God. Each is 100% God. What you have in the Trinity is three persons that each fully share a divine nature.

He goes on to quote their “Messiah” as saying:

As far as the Christians are concerned, they are clearly opposed to the Oneness of God, for they believe in three ‘Gods’— the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Their explanation, that they believe ‘three’ to be ‘one’, is really quite absurd. No sane person can be expected to accept such flawed logic, especially when the three Gods are considered to be permanently self-existing and each is thought to be a complete God in Himself. What kind of arithmetic is it that shows them to be one, and where is it taught? Is there any logic or philosophy that can explain how beings which are permanently three can be counted as one? It is only a deception to argue that this is a mystery which human reason cannot understand, for human reason clearly understands that if there are three perfect Gods, they will have to be ‘three’ and not ‘one’.

No, no, no, and no. All that is being done here is a straw man. Monotheism is ESSENTIAL to the Trinity. Muslims start from their failed misunderstanding, argue against that, and then proclaim victory.

Iqbal claims the Trinity was invented by Tertullian. Actually, Theophilus used the term Trinity before Tertullian did and neither of them had to explain it, which indicates it was something known to their audience. I do not expect the apostles to be quoting the Creed of Chalcedon immediately after the resurrection. They were too working out and understanding what Jesus told them. Acts 10 indicates Peter didn’t even understand that Christianity had to go to the Gentiles.

He then refers to a Muslim who asked a pastor that if he wished to pick up a pencil on the table, would he call his friends for help. The pastor thought that was crazy, understandably so. The Muslim then said that if God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all could create the world it seems strange they should work together.

Because?…..

All three were involved because it was an act of love on the part of all three. All three do everything together. This is an appeal to ignorance. “I don’t know why God would do it this way, therefore He didn’t.”

So once again, close out another chapter entirely disappointed.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 4

Does Jesus have the attributes of God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Early on, Iqbal brings up two passages of Scripture to show Jesus was not omnipotent.

John 5:30 — By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

And

Mark 6:5 — He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

With the former, what does he expect Jesus to say? “I do everything on my own and I make judgments the way I want to regardless of the Father?” This is a claim of strong unity with the Father. He is saying “When I judge, it is the judgment of God. When I act, it is the act of God.”

As for the latter, it seems strange to think Jesus’s ability to do miracles depend on faith when in the Gospels, His followers weren’t expecting His resurrection and yet, there it was. We can grant Muslims don’t believe in the resurrection, but that doesn’t change that it is in the Gospels and thus they are primary sources for Christian doctrine. What is going on is Jesus is responding to loyalty there. Since the people don’t welcome Him and want Him, He doesn’t do many miracles there.

Iqbal also says God does not pray to anyone, but this assumes that God is unipersonal, which is the statement under question. If there are at least two persons who are God, what is wrong with one of them “praying” to the other one? This is especially the case since Jesus was fully human. Iqbal needs to show why this is a problem and not just assume it is.

He then looks at what Warfield said about how Jesus acted in both His humanity and His deity. This is certainly true, but then Iqbal jumps to full Nestorianism saying that this means Jesus had two persons in Him. That was a position the early church called heretical. (And interestingly, could have been the kind of Christianity that Muhammad was most in contact with.)

He also says one idea also among Christians is that Jesus laid aside His powers based on Philippians 2. No. That’s known as the kenotic heresy nowadays and you will not find it espoused, at least by Christians who know what they’re talking about.

He then has D.A. Carson being quoted arguing against this in The Case for Christ and then treats it as if Carson is saying he doesn’t know how to explain the incarnation. Unfortunately, I do not have my copy of the book with me, but I do remember Carson goes on to explain what he thinks is going on in this passage. Strange that Iqbal doesn’t show that part.

Iqbal also stresses that Jesus never says “I forgive you” but “Your sins are forgiven” and saying that Jesus is saying the forgiveness comes from God. Yes. And? This is something a Trinitarian has no problem with. What is unusual is Jesus pronounces forgiveness even without a person actually repenting (Hard for that paralyzed man to repent) and acting as if He is the temple Himself where the presence of God dwelt.

He goes on to list eleven signs Jesus was a human, which no one is disputing. One is that Jesus died on the cross, but God cannot die. When people present this to me, I ask them what it means to die. If they say it means the person ceases to exist, then yes, God cannot cease to exist. But if that is the case, then what happens to passages like Colossians 1 that say the Son holds all things together? The Son could never cease to exist. If instead it means, the soul of Jesus left the body of Jesus, then we have no problem.

It’s odd to see that he says Jesus is guilty of falsehood. In one case, Jesus says to the thief that the thief will be with Him in Paradise, but Jesus went to hell for three days. I take hell to be best understood as the realm of the dead. I do happen to think Jesus did go to Paradise with the thief. Iqbal also talks about Jesus’s harsh language like calling the Pharisees broods of vipers. Statements like this are allegedly unbecoming of the Son of God. We are not told why this is.

Finally, there’s the idea Jesus got prophecy wrong. Just do a search on this blog for Preterism and what I have said about it. There are far too many to link to.

We’ll continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ Part 3

What kind of Son of God was Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re returning to this book so let’s see what a Muslim has to say about this topic.

Iqbal starts quoting the Qur’an on how Jesus was a messenger like those before Him.

Here it is clearly stated that Jesus, the Messiah, was only a messenger of God like other messengers of God who had come before him. He was a human like them and this is simply based on the fact that it is the way of God to send messengers to his people, not His literal “divine sons”. Had that been the case, sons of God in the literal sense would have always appeared before and even after Jesus.

Iqbal, Farhan. The Myth of the Divinity of Jesus Christ (Kindle Locations 882-887). Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama`at Canada. Kindle Edition.

I honestly can’t make heads or tails of what he is saying here. The best I can gather is that Iqbal thinks that Jesus is one divine son of many and God would send many more. This is nothing that Christians believe in that sense. Angels can be called sons of God, but certainly not in the same way that Jesus is the Son of God. John 1:18 kind of clinches for us that Jesus is the one and only.

Iqbal later in this chapter talks about the I AM statements and says “People say I am” all the time in the Bible. This is true. If we had an apostle saying “I am hungry”, no one would take that as a claim of divinity. The question is how are the phrases used by Jesus and what do they mean? John 8 has a clear usage in the end of Jesus taking the divine name upon Himself. Other usages have them speaking of Him in glorious terms.

Going back to John 8:58, Iqbal says that Christians have to go to Jesus’s enemies. We don’t say Jesus’s enemies explain what Jesus meant. We say that they understood what Jesus meant. The meaning was clear.

He later goes on to give out the same claim of Gospels being written decades after Jesus’s death and Paul never meeting Jesus. Of course, the book that was written about 600 years after the time of the ministry of Jesus by someone who never met Jesus either is completely reliable with what it says about Him. No. There is no interaction with something like Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

He does say that many prophets claim to be doing the works of God, which is true. Why is it that Jesus’s should be different? The difference in Jesus is the emphasis was on Himself. Jesus saw Himself as greater than the Sabbath, greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, and as a walking temple. Jesus said He did miracles by the finger of God meaning the Kingdom was among the people.

So that’s it for this entry. There is some other stuff in here, including claims of dreams and visions from their “Messiah”, but nothing relevant to the topic. We’ll continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Saint Or Antichrist?

Are either of these accurate? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In light of the recent assassination attempt, something humorous is both sides are using the Bible to try to back a point. The left is using this as proof that Trump is the antichrist. The right is using this as proof that Trump has an anointing of God on him. I’m not going to say either of those positions is false, but I am going to say the arguments I see being made are just horrible.

So let’s start with the easier one.

You all know I’m an orthodox Preterist so I wouldn’t be reading this in any futurist sense at all, but for the sake of argument, I’m going to take a more dispensational approach. To begin with, the Bible doesn’t say that about the Antichrist. It says that about the Beast. Now aren’t those the same person? They could be, but Revelation never says that they are. That is an assumption that is brought to the text.

For the second point, I am not saying that what happened to the president is a mere matter, but put it in proper context. The overwhelming majority of us that had a bullet graze our ear would survive. That is not surprising. What makes the Beast surprising in the text is that his wound is fatal and yet he survives it. (It’s also one of his heads as the beast has multiple heads, but again, I’m assuming a more dispensational approach here.)

About the only way you would die from a bullet to the ear is if you had hemophilia and your blood couldn’t clot properly. The fact that Trump survived this is not incredible. Had it hit him full on as it would have if he had not turned his neck and yet he survived would indeed be incredible. (And even still, it would not show he was the Antichrist.)

That one’s fairly simple, but the right side coming from evangelicals is more complex.

In the Bible the concept of blood on the right ear (Leviticus 8:22-24 and 14:28) serves as a visible mark of consecration, signifying that the person is dedicated to God’s service and has been set apart for a specific purpose. This act represents a physical and spiritual transformation, preparing the individual for their sacred role. Here’s a breakdown of the significance:

*Right ear: The right ear represents hearing and obedience. In ancient times, the right ear was considered the most important ear, as it was the ear that heard the words of God.

*Blood: Blood represents life, sacrifice, and atonement. In this context, the blood is a symbol of purification and consecration. *Consecration: Consecration means to set something or someone apart for a specific purpose, making it holy and dedicated to God. In this case, the blood on the right ear signifies that the person is being set apart for a sacred task or role.

*Priestly consecration: In Leviticus 8, the blood is applied to the right ear of Aaron and his sons, consecrating them as priests. This act sets them apart as mediators between God and the people.

*Purification: In Leviticus 14, the blood is applied to the right ear of the person being cleansed, symbolizing their purification and restoration to the community.

It’s really embarrassing to see evangelicals sharing stuff like this.

For one, yes, the right ear was anointed, but so was the thumb of the right hand and the big toe of his right foot. This was also an intentional act. No Jew today would accept being shot at to get the blood of someone. It was also done to consecrate someone as a priest, which is not the office that Trump is running for.

For Leviticus 14, it is for atonement, but it is the blood of an animal. Also, there is to be anointing oil placed on the body parts as well, and it’s the same parts of the body. In both cases, we only have one body part so this does not apply.

There are some who are saying that it was divine intervention that caused Trump to move when he did to avoid the bullet. Maybe. We don’t know. I am one who thinks it is foolish to speak when we do not know.

For those who are playing pin the tail on the Antichrist, please stop. It’s embarrassing. Yes. There have been some predictions made about Biden like that and if Kamala Harris starts running, they will be made about her. They have been made about most every political figure and every tyrant and they have all been wrong. (Aside from Nero as the beast which I hold was entirely correct.)

I am a conservative who votes that way, but I try to knock down bad arguments wherever I see them. The antichrist argument is a bad argument. The right ear anointed argument is a bad argument. If anything, the evangelicals making arguments like the above are the most embarrassing since they should know better.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Is Love Love?

What is love? (Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, no more.) Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“Love is love!” is often what people in support of the LGBTQ+ groups say. It sounds simple. How could you respond to something like that? Love is not love? I saw someone actually say at an event in the comments recently “Love isn’t love!” Well, that’s wrong, but does that mean the other side is right?

A lot of Christians hear a saying like this and think that they can’t really argue against that. Who is opposed to love after all? Isn’t love good? Isn’t God love.

Let’s replace it with another saying.

Cats are cats.

Now would anyone want to dare say that cats aren’t cats? What else could they be? However, what if I said cats are cats, therefore, this:

Is the same as this:

Are there similarities? Yes. Are there relations? Yes. Despite that, when I go to bed at night, there’s only one I want jumping up on the bed with me. Meanwhile, if you go to the zoo expecting to see the bottom one and you see the top instead, you’ll be thinking the zoo isn’t bringing in all these interesting species.

Both of these are cats, yes, but both are not the same kind of cat. We have to break down what that means. My Shiro, for instance, is a Turkish Angora largely. My parents have a cat that is a Himalayan. As someone who loves cats, every day I ask my Echo device what the cat breed of the day is. Somedays, I do get something like a lion. Most days I get a breed of housecat.

You could fill in the gap with several items. Dogs are dogs. Books are books. TV shows are TV shows. Movies are movies. Sports are sports.

The Greeks had four different words for love.  Many of these we celebrate in our society. I don’t know anyone who is opposed to friendship. We can say there are some people you shouldn’t be friends with, but we are not opposed to friendship in general.

Agape love is usually seen as God love and while there are people who don’t believe in God, many would not oppose the idea of something like loving your neighbor as yourself. They could say that if a Christian thinks God loves them, they’re wrong, but good for them. Family love is more familial love. This is the kind of courtesy you have for a complete stranger just because they’re a fellow human being.

Now we get to the last one, erotic love. Very few people are probably anti-sex altogether. That includes we who are Christians. It’s one of the reasons we get married as well after all. Christians have books and resources too on how to have a good married sex life.

At the same time, that doesn’t mean everyone celebrates every kind of sexual activity. Let’s start with an obvious one. Children. The overwhelming majority of people says children should not be involved in sexual relationships. Pederasty is still largely condemned, though if society keeps going the way it is going, that won’t last much longer.

How about another one? Rape. You can love women and you can love sex, but if you force yourself on a woman against her will, then that is wrong. Yes. I know rape is about power, but it is also an act of sex as well and one we condemn.

Most sex is celebrated today. I am not saying I celebrate it, but let’s face it. On a sitcom or drama, the question often thought is “Will they or won’t they?” It used to be “Will they get married?” but nowadays it’s “Will they have sex?” It’s usually celebrated when they do. I am not agreeing with it. I am just saying the reality is real.

Yet despite that, do we really think we should live in a culture where we celebrate and encourage ALL sexual activity even if it is consensual? Do we want to celebrate couples forming one-night stands and not forming long-term relationships? Do we want to oppose men and women forming lifelong covenants called marriage?

After all, something that sets sex apart from every other activity out there is it alone can produce new life. That means with it comes responsibilities and risks as well. Seeing as life is a good (Although sadly, many think life in the womb is not a good but a problem to be dealt with), we encourage relationships that are capable of bringing that new life into the world and raising it. Thus, we encourage marriage as a form of stability for raising new life.

This is the love as a society that we should be promoting the most. No other relationship can do this. Some might say some incestual relationships could, but those blur the family lines and also are prone to more genetic harm to the child. That is why societies promote married love. It is not because the people feel good about themselves. It is not because they have their identities affirmed. It is because that alone produces children and society depends on its members having children.

Note in all of this I have not said same-sex sexual relationships are immoral. (though I think they are) I have said simply that they are not the same as married opposite-sex relationships. This is also why the idea of redefining marriage is so problematic. It has been compared to the bans against interracial marriage in the past, but the problem here is that race has no affect on the sexual behavior. Men of all races are still men and women of all races are still women. The races are interchangeable in the relationship. It is not the same with the person’s sex.

By the way, along those lines, if one can say they are the wrong sex and identify as another, what could stop someone from identifying as a different race? I am fully white, but what if I said I was born into the wrong race and I feel like a black man? If anything, race is much more on a spectrum than sex is.

So is love, love? Yes, but it needs to be broken down and not treated as a cliche. Cliches tend to stop thinking and our society needs more of it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Is DEI about to DIE?

Is it in its last days? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

With the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, he has passed being in the bullseye, but DEI has not. Suppose you have been living under a rock somewhere. In that case, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, which means focusing on every single minority group out there to exclude the majority in virtue signaling. It also means ignoring minor details for jobs like, oh, ability, experience, and other little stuff like that. Do you help fulfill the quota for sex, sexual orientation, and race? Welcome aboard!

A lot of it was going on with the Secret Service at the attempt being publicly seen to have huge problems and a lot of it was with what people saw the women doing who were part of the Secret Service. This isn’t just men who have been saying this. Women have been saying it too. One woman couldn’t reholster her pistol and the women were asking what they were doing and where they were going. (See here.)

This is not to say that women can’t do this job. I’m sure some could. There are some women out there who are great shots with guns. However, Donald Trump is a big man and if you are going to shield him, you need to be as big as he is. If you also don’t know what to do in a situation like this, you are more of a liability than you are an asset at that point.

The director of the Secret Service has come under fire for wanting a quota of 30% women by 2030 and for also remarks about the dangers of a sloped roof. We also know the assassin was in sight for thirty minutes before anything happened. Why wasn’t anything done?

It might not be any coincidence that shortly after this, Microsoft decides to axe an entire DEI team. At this, I rejoice. Loyal readers know I am deeply interested in the gaming community and nowadays, many of us are dreading new games coming out. Why? Because of DEI. We’re not getting games. We’re getting a political lecture.

Consider also the case of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The Assassin’s Creed games have been known for historical accuracy in the past. Some people thought it could be used to rebuild Notre Dame after the fire. Now this new game is the first one set in Japan and who is upset about it the most?

The Japanese.

They even have a petition out demanding Ubisoft desist in making the game immediately. A lot of it centers around the character Yasuke. Now he is a real historical figure, but he is being made out to be much more than he was. He was an attendant to Nobunaga, but he was not officially a samurai.

There were plenty of Japanese figures that could be chosen, but Ubisoft decided to ignore all of those. Why? DEI. Oh. This black man who the Jesuits brought over is also supposed to be capable of being LGBTQ+. Yep. That makes sense.

Besides, in the game, the assassin is supposed to be able to blend into the crowd. Kill the target, then hide immediately before people realize what has happened. How will this go in Japan? “So the guy who stabbed the victim? Anything distinguishing about him that sets him apart from everyone else?”

Japan says this is a misunderstanding of Japanese culture and the role of the samurai. They also say it will lead to Asian racism. Besides, how do you make a whole game out of a character that we only have a  few scant documents about?

Gamers have been so sick of this that now we have a website set up to deal with this. DEIdetected.com. If your game has the influence of companies like Sweet Baby Inc. involved, we don’t want them. More and more gamers are going to retro games because they can play games without being lectured on politics that way.

The LGBTQ movement is also getting tiresome for gamers. There are plenty of LGBTQ people who just want to live their lives in peace. When you start putting it in everything, everyone gets tired of it. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has been a massive failure and yet they are introducing a new character, Victoria Frias. Who is she? Mrs. Freeze and surprise, surprise, she’s a lesbian.

I watch the videos people make complaining about this. I don’t see anything that indicates to me that these are staunch evangelical Christians. They’re just people who want to play games without politics.

It’s not just games that are having this. Movies that go DEI are not being popular. The usual claim is that many men don’t want to see movies with strong women. Sorry, but I think the Alien franchise and Kill Bill and others did just fine. For the gaming world, there was no uproar when it was discovered that Samus Aran in Metroid was a woman. No one complained about Tomb Raider. (If anything, most men loved Lara Croft. I wonder why….)

Also, consider a TV series like The Acolyte. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a viewer score of 15% (As of the time of this writing). People who are fans of the series tell me that it is completely out of sync with what George Lucas started and dumps all over the franchise. It is simply pushing a woke agenda.

Contrast this with a major motion picture success last year, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I rarely see movies due to low income now, but I made sure to see this one. I saw in it a love letter to the fans of the game that focused on facets of the game even going all the way back. Spike from Wrecking Crew is even a semi-prominent character in parts of the movie. I even made a video responding to Grace Randolph on it. (I also have someone on campus who is going to teach me about YouTube editing and producing videos so Gaming Theologian should be back soon.)

What makes great games and movies and TV shows successful? Simple point. They are fun. We enjoy them. We don’t go to these to get told that we need to celebrate diversity or that white men are the spawn of the devil. We go to them because we want to have fun.

If you do it right, you can still get a message across in a fun story. There are several fandoms of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings today and yet both of these series are teaching a Christian way of the world. However, both writers made sure that they were making good stories. Most Christian media today is “Hi. We have to point out to you that this is a Christian movie explicitly so we have to have one scene with a cross where we spell out the gospel entirely because you might miss it otherwise. Also, every Christian will be a charming and lovely character and every non-Christian is completely evil.” It doesn’t work when the Woke do it either where every LGBTQ or minority character is completely awesome and every cis straight white male is evil. Most people at the beginning of The Acolyte said the villain will be the straight white male.

If you are to have characters that are “diverse” in a game or movie or TV show, it needs to be natural and relevant to the story and not forced or artificial. I think of Barrett from Final Fantasy VII. He was a black man who was certainly very gruff, but he also had a great love for his daughter and would do anything to help her out. Many of us liked the character.

Consider comic book characters as well. There is a push to often take established characters who have had a history of having romances with the opposite sex, and all of a sudden make them same-sex attracted. If you want to have a superhero who is same-sex attracted, knock yourself out, but make your own. Don’t throw out a character’s entire history just because you want to shoehorn an agenda into it.

However, if you want to write that story, what the fans want is not diversity for the sake of diversity. What they want is a good story. Yes. Believe it or not if you aren’t a part of these worlds, people who read comic books and play video games care about good stories. We want narratives that hold together. We want heroes we can love because they’re heroes and villains we can seek to take down because they’re villains. We don’t mind some shades of grey where it’s hard to tell who is a hero and who is a villain and we don’t mind it when we have a hard time deciding what the right moral choice to make is. That makes it more authentic for us in many ways.

What will Microsoft do about DEI in the future? I don’t know, but I have high hopes. I have high hopes the time has come for DEI to D-I-E. It has been a kiss of death to series that it has been in. Get back to making great entertainment again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Do Most Christians Know?

Is your average Christian capable? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Reading through a lot of anti-Trinitarian material, something that strikes me is how many of these arguments are the same tired cliches. Constantine is to blame for everything. The Trinity was created at the Council of Nicea. What about passages like John 14:28? Don’t you believe that there is only one God?

These are all childish objections, but I was reading one such book today that while presenting these objections said that most Christians don’t know how to answer these questions. They only know what the person behind the pulpit told them. They never really study the issues for themselves.

I’m afraid that’s right.

Most Christians aren’t trained in this. Your average church teaches Christianity not so much as a doctrinal system, but as a pragmatic system. Here’s how you are to love your neighbor. Here’s how you are to pray. Here’s how you are to denounce sin. None of those things are wrong in themselves. They all have a place.

None of those are explaining the why of what we believe.

We are to love our neighbors. Why? Maybe my neighbor is a jerk. Well, Jesus tells us to. Okay. So why should I still? Who is Jesus that I should give Him that authority?

Get rid of your sin! Why should I? What if what I do is done in private and doesn’t hurt any one. It’s not that big a deal. Right? God forgives anyway. Right?

Even more, we are sitting ducks when the New Atheists come along or the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons. Your average Christian doesn’t understand why Christians disagree with the LGBTQ movement. Your average Christian will think they are not supposed to judge any one.

Why? Because first off, no one ever told them this information is available. Second, no one has treated them like they are capable of learning it.

There’s a theory I have that people often become the way that you treat them. If the people in the pew are treated like they are infants in the faith, that is what they will be. Infants in the faith. Go look at Hebrews 6 one time and read the doctrines discussed at the start that are discussed as elementary. For too many of us today, they would be the advanced course.

You do not have to be a genius to understand apologetics and Christianity. You don’t have to spend every waking moment with your nose in a book. You don’t have to go to seminary or enter the ministry formally. You can work a 9-5 job, spend time with your family and your hobbies, and still be informed.

Sadly, too many Christians know more about their favorite sports team, TV show, movie, or gaming series, than they do about the faith system they base all of their eternity on. That needs to be changed. In this day and age, there are more resources out there to educate yourself on most any topic that you want.

If you care about your faith, you will do it.

And pastors, start treating your congregations like they’re capable. We’re supposed to be raising up people who will go out and fight the good fight. We are not out there to just feel good about ourselves. We are out there to change the world and we are the ones who have the responsibility of doing it. God will not reward laziness on our parts. We have our orders. It is up to us to follow them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

How To Treat Enemies

How do we treat our enemies? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters.

If anything has been disturbing about the assassination attempt I wrote about last time, it’s been the response from many on the left about how disappointed they are that the shooter didn’t miss. There is a saying that when people show you who they are, believe them. What we have seen from multiple people is who they are and how they view their enemies.

What happens if you become their enemy?

As a Christian, I know Christ told me to love my enemies. Isn’t it interesting that He never denied we will have enemies? The Old Testament didn’t, even within the community of Israel. Exodus 23:4 told the people of Israel that if they come across the ox or donkey of their enemy wandering off, return it. This would be within Israelite territory most likely.

I hope many of you have known on this blog that I try to treat my enemies fairly. I have not held back in saying that I am a conservative Christian. Thus, I view people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as enemies. I have some extremely strong viewpoints about both of these people.

However, when I have seen something false being shared about them, I have answered it. I used to get email blasts from someone who would talk about the latest horrible thing Obama had done when he was in office. I would spend a few minutes researching it, find out it was false, and then send out an email response to everyone back documenting the claim.

Yes. Conservative Christians share fake news also.

Some of these people who were getting these emails were liberals. I know that some of them came to respect me even though they disagreed with me because I cared about getting facts right. I have often chided Christians, even on this blog, for sharing information that can easily be shown to be false by a five-minute web search. If you want people to believe you on a claim about what happened 2,000 years ago, they need to be able to believe you on what happened two days ago.

Some of these responses have been public posts. Consider when Reclaim America shared a claim about Hillary Clinton. Another one was about Muslim apologist Zakir Naik. Now if I oppose these people ideologically, why would I write posts defending them?

Because truth matters. I will not take down my opponent with a lie. If they are as bad as I think they are, the truth about them is sufficient.

Let’s talk about present realities. You might be surprised, but I pray for the Biden family every night. I pray our president will have long life and health while he’s in the office. At the same time, I think he has done great damage to this country and the world and I do pray for justice, but that will come at God’s hands, not mine. I also realize we both have to answer to the same God one day.

If anything, the person I think has the roughest time in all of this in that family is Ashley Biden. Think about this. How many of you ever kept a journal or a diary where you would write down your most private and intimate thoughts. It wasn’t meant for everyone to see. Her diary was meant to be that, but now it’s public. Anyone can see it.

Would you like yours being open for everyone to see?

Now let’s get even more personal.

I have an ex-wife. I’ve spoken about my divorce. Does it hurt? Yep. Every day. Is it tempting to speak ill of her and even to think ill of her? Yes. I can easily say no other person on Earth has hurt me as much as she has.

I still pray for her well-being every night.

I challenge you even to come to campus and see if you can find anyone who has heard me speak ill of my ex-wife. If anything, I try to avoid doing that. I don’t even think you could find someone on Facebook who has seen that happen. That’s a bold claim, but I’ll make it.

Christ told me to love my enemies. That is unconditional. There are no exceptions to that rule. He didn’t say “Love your enemies, except that person who hurt you more than anyone else ever has. It’s cool to hate them.”

This is something I wrote about years ago in a post asking if your murderer will be in Heaven. I love how someone in the comments said that Stephen and Paul are together right now. That is the kind of radical love and forgiveness Christ calls us to.

Sometimes I see people on my Facebook feed say awful things about their exes. Every time, my thinking is the same. “I don’t know much about that person, but I sure know a lot more about you.” There are a lot of people I suspect in this election season who are seeing the reactions and saying “I wasn’t sure where I stand on Trump, but seeing how you all are reacting, I think I’ll stand with him.”

One tip I offer you all for your enemies is to pray for them. I mean real prayers for their well-being. It’s easy to say you will pray a Psalm of judgment on them. I have said before we often ask justice on our enemies and mercy on us. We hardly ever if ever reverse that and ask for mercy on our enemies and justice on us.

The way I see it anyway, if I live with anger and hostility towards my ex-wife, she wins. She’s still controlling me. She’s still dominant in my life. The more I let my hostility go, the more I am free.

Will I continue to pray for the Bidens every night? Yes. While I think Trump will win, if by some chance whoever the Democrat nominee is wins, I will pray for them every night too. I won’t pray for their agenda to succeed, but I will pray for them as a person.

When Obama was in office people used to ask me if I could meet with anyone in the world who would it be, and I said it would be him. Why? I would sit down and tell him the gospel. I would say the same about Trump when he was in office. I would say the same about Biden now. Something all of us have in common is all of us need the gospel.

Pray for your enemies. If not, you are more likely to become that which you condemn.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

On The Assassination Attempt

What does this say about us? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have an app that gives me points for walking that I can use to get gift cards, so I was walking at the student center yesterday here on campus when I hear my phone. It’s my Mom calling. I answer and she asks if I had heard the news. Well, I had heard that Richard Simmons had died as well as Dr. Ruth.  Which one was it?

Then she told me about the assassination attempt.

That got me opening up YouTube and Facebook and Messenger and many other apps piecing together everything that happened. When I got back, I watched several videos talking about the event. As a gamer, I have an Echo nearby so while I’m doing a game, I’m also learning about everything going on in the world around me.

So let’s get some things clear.

First, this is not a hoax. There are a lot of people on the left that have been saying this kind of thing. The problem with a hoax being a largely public event is that so many people have to be in on a cover-up. This would mean every Secret Service agent there was in on it and that the person who died as a result of being shot by a stray bullet and the others in critical condition had to be in on it.

No. This was the real deal. Also, let’s keep in mind that Alex Jones was sued heavily for saying that Sandy Hook was a hoax.

What happened was awful, but what was even worse in many ways was the responses that were going on. You can say with an assassin that there is one crazy person out there. However, my social media feeds yesterday were full of leftists regretting not that the event happened, but that the attempt failed. Trending on X were “How did you miss?” and “You had one job.”

Some people were saying that if the shot had hit, it would have saved democracy. I’m wondering if these people know how World War I started. Our country right now is a powder keg and many of us fear that a Civil War is going to break out sometime. This could have been the match that sparked it all off.

The Babylon Bee was accurate when it said that a party that for years has claimed Trump was Hitler is shocked when someone tries to assassinate him. This is something many of us on the right have been saying in various other circumstances. All it takes is one person to believe the claims.

A major question is how this has happened and some former Secret Service agents are saying this was a failure on the part of the Service. Yes. They did their part to protect when it was clear what was happening, and that is honorable, but we have at least one witness who was there who saw what was going on and tried in vain to alert the people.

Then you have the way that many on the left were responding which is extremely problematic. Consider what Representative Steven Woodrow said on X shortly after:

He has since deleted his X account, but the internet never forgets. If you want to see more like these, you can go look at DefiantLs who has the best compendium of them on X that I know of. Also while there, you can see what various news outlets said about it:

USA Today:

Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles former president, crowd.

Yeah. Loud noises. That’s what it was.

CNN also had similar with a statement about Trump being led off by Secret Service after falling at rally.

So what happens now?

First, we pray. We pray for the healing of our nation. We pray for President Trump and we pray for the families of those who lost a loved one. We all need to know about Corey Comperatore who died protecting his family. For many of you who complain about men, real men do what Comperatore did.

Second, we also pray for our enemies as well. If it were not for the grace of God, any of us could have been them. Any of us could have been an assassin were it not for God’s grace in our lives. We have seen from history that anyone is capable of great evil if given the chance.

Third, we pray for ourselves that we will not escalate the situation in any way. I know I was angry when I heard the news yesterday, but I also realized that if I let that anger control me, I would be heading down the path that I was condemning. Christ told us to not hate your brother in your heart. Why is that? Because if you do, then if the benefits outweighed the costs, you would kill him. Keep in mind something I tell people. When you think you are incapable of falling into a certain sin, you are taking the first step to falling into that sin.

Political pundits will discuss this back and forth. I was too young to know about it when the attempt was made on Reagan, but I am not too young now to remember this attempt. Let’s hope that it’s another 40 years before another such attempt, but preferably let’s pray one doesn’t happen at all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)