Category: Current Events

Coffee Cup Insanity

Are Christians really embarrassing themselves? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Being someone who lives in the south, I resonate with what Jeff Foxworthy once said in that the problem with being in the south is that we can’t keep the most ignorant among us off of the TV screen. Inevitably, when a disaster happens in the south, the worst representative of us is chosen to give the rest of the world a crazy picture of what we’re really like down here. The same problem often happens with Christianity. We have more than enough loudmouths out there who for some reason gather an audience even though they don’t really do anything worthwhile for the body and provide a good dose of entertainment for those outside who say “Yep. That’s what Christians are really like.”

Take Joshua Feuerstein for instance.

This is a guy who goes into a Starbucks and decides that since their cups are totally red aside from the Starbucks logo that Starbucks has declared a war on Christmas. He also has this notion that Starbucks employees are not allowed to say Merry Christmas. (Maybe they’re not saying it yet because we haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet?) This despite the fact that Starbucks employees have said they can most definitely say Merry Christmas and despite the fact that plenty of Christians have posted who aren’t Starbucks employees but have said that their baristas have wished them a Merry Christmas.

Feuerstein’s idea then is to stick it to the man by telling the barista every time that his name is Merry Christmas. That way when they call out an order, they will have to say Merry Christmas.

It’s as if Feuerstein thinks that getting a barista at Starbucks to say Merry Christmas is like getting a vampire near garlic or Superman near green kryptonite.

So you see, Feuerstein is teaching Starbucks a lesson. He’s making sure that they wish everyone a Merry Christmas and he is forcing them to write Merry Christmas on the cups. If that isn’t enough, he wants you to join in and has a hashtag devoted to this. Yep. Gentlemen, start your engines! The revolution has begun!

There’s no nice way to say my thoughts on this.

This is stupid.

Let’s start by looking at the story that has been set up by his group themselves, the radicals.

When you look at the way the cups used to be, which while it’s hard for me to say I suspect they had more secular messages about reindeer and Santa than about celebrating the birth of Jesus. Of course, for the radicals, this is enough evidence that Starbucks is trying to remove Christ from Christmas. Fortunately, their own Josh Feuerstein has started a worldwide movement based on his idea. Gotta love the humility there. Not only is it there, but their own link on Facebook has the story that says a man has a genius idea and describes it as an epic win. As Feuerstein himself says

Its ok that some of you don’t agree with my methods. I still love you. Obviously at nearly 8 million views in 48 hours .. its connecting with the sentiments of a lot of others too!!!!

Yes. Because a lot of people are viewing this, that must mean it’s connecting with the sentiments of others.

I suppose that’s the same reason everyone stares at a car crash as they drive by it. It’s connecting with their sentiments. Because something goes viral does not mean that it’s a good idea that is connecting. Do we need to be reminded that we say the word viral and the word that it comes from is virus? I suspect most people are watching this not because they agree, but because they think this is incredibly ridiculous. (btw, why is it that Feuerstein is wearing a red cap that doesn’t have a Christmas message on it? Is he declaring war on Christmas?)

So to get back to the article, the idea is to go in, say your name is Merry Christmas, and force the barista to say it (Because you know they all hate that) and then take a selfie with it.

Again, stupid.

In fact, for wanting to teach Starbucks a lesson, if I was the CEO of Starbucks, I would be thrilled that this was going on. You see, either way, people would be coming into my stores and they would be buying my drinks and they would be taking pictures of my drinks and sharing them everywhere and this kind of talk only gets people talking about Starbucks all the more. I say this as someone who doesn’t even go to Starbucks. Whenever I am in one, I don’t care for coffee at all and instead choose to go with tea. I don’t see this to defend Starbucks or promote them as there are several other grounds that one could go against Starbucks on, but this is not one of them.

You see, let’s suppose you go and buy a drink from Starbucks and then take a video of yourself pouring it down the drain to show Starbucks how little you care about them. Well guess what? Starbucks got your money any way and frankly, they don’t care what you do with their drink afterwards. It’s the same thing with people who would buy copies of the Harry Potter book just to burn them. The publisher got your money anyway. They don’t really care what you do with the book after you buy it. In fact, I would think at this rate Starbucks would say next year they might not even have holiday colors on their cups to see if they can get even more people talking about them.

And let’s take a look at what is going on in the world around us. For instance, ISIS is busy killing off Christians in the Middle East. It would be interesting to see what they think about the cups, but I doubt they really have an opinion.

Starbucks Coffee Cups

You see, while Feuerstein is whining about coffee cups at Starbucks, there are real battles going on. There are real Christians that are being put to death under ISIS. There are real Christians being killed in China for their faith. Christians all over the world are suffering at the hands of real persecution. Every time you make an issue like this a war against Christians, you demean everything that those Christians are going through.

You don’t even have to go overseas. Look what’s going on in America. Christians are abandoning Christianity rapidly and one of the reasons is unanswered questions and that usually gets paired with the idea that Christians lack critical thinking skills. Guess what kind of feeds into that mentality? Not only do we have that, we have a culture that has justified anything in the area of sexuality saying that everything is okay as long as it’s love. So we have all of this going on and the war that we need to be fighting is that Starbucks doesn’t have coffee cups the way that we want them.

I don’t say this to defend Starbucks nor do I say that we should not question them on other grounds, but this is a ridiculous one and Feuerstein is just helping to increase their coverage. Anytime anyone talks about this, Starbucks gets free advertising. (I happen to think the big compromise is that they sell coffee which we know was created by the devil to lead us away from tea.) Not only that, Feuerstein is lowering the sacrifice of real Christians and making us all look like idiots out there. (I can also say real Christians since it’s been pointed out to me by my friend Marcia Montenegro of CANA that Feuerstein is actually a Oneness Pentecostal, a heretical sect that denies the Trinity.)

You might think that by having the barista shout out Merry Christmas, you’ll get people talking about Christmas. Um. No. First off, as it gets closer to Christmastime, you might be surprised but people talk about Christmas anyway. It’s kind of like the closer we get to Super Bowl Sunday, the more people talk about the Super Bowl. It’s just so amazing how it works like that. If they do talk about it, what might be said most is “Wow. Look at those dumb Christians whining about a war on Christmas. No wonder we shouldn’t take them seriously.” All it will ultimately do is make you look dumb, and you’ve already got Josh Feuerstein to do that for you. You don’t need to make it easier.

Furthermore, I’m going to go a step further. Let’s suppose Starbucks didn’t want to do anything for Christmas. Well that would be foolish I think, but that’s their right. That’s what freedom is in America. They don’t have to do anything. Starbucks, believe it or not, is not a church. They are not in the business of evangelism. Instead of whining about Starbucks not sharing Jesus this Christmas, maybe Christians should go out there and, I don’t know, share Jesus this Christmas? If Starbucks doesn’t want to, they don’t have to. That’s their right and that right will be defended.

Also, please do not speak about this as the “Coffee Cup Controversy.” There is no controversy going on. Give it a more fitting name. Call it the Coffee Cup idiocy or hoopla or nonsense, but certainly nothing that gives it the idea that there is really some merit to anything this guy is saying.

Go out and fight the real battles Christians and please don’t give people like Feuerstein a microphone. It will only be used to embarrass you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Thoughts on War Room

What did I think of this movie? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you’re wondering about last week, I was away in Atlanta visiting my in-laws. I had a hard time connecting to the site with my wife’s laptop so I thought “Forget it. I can go a week without. I’ll just focus on my family.” That’s what I did. Right now, it looks like things are back to normal as we’re back home in Knoxville again and the first subject I want to talk about is a movie that we went to see with Allie’s parents and that’s War Room.

It’s no secret that Christian movies lately have been really cheesy. Most filmmakers of Christian movies have this idea that your audience is really stupid and think that if we are going to make this a Christian movie, we must somehow shove the Gospel right in your face because that’s the only way that you’re going to get it. War Room is certainly a step up and what I thought to be an excellent Christian movie. Does that mean I agree with everything? No. It only means that the parts that I favored stood out above the parts that I did not.

The movie involves the story of a real estate agent helping an elderly widow move out of her house. The widow shows the real estate agent all the rooms of her house and then points out eventually what her favorite room is and calls it her War Room. It’s a room where there are prayers and Bible verses written on the wall. In fact, it’s hardly a room as it really is a closet. The widow then begins talking to the real estate agent, Elizabeth, about her marriage and what she needs to do to win back her husband Tony when they are in a terrible place in their marriage. Elizabeth is also reminded that she can’t be the one to directly change Tony. She needs to work on herself. In this way, the movie also gives some great marriage advice.

Elizabeth is encouraged to develop a prayer time, though we can all relate when the first time she tries her daughter and her daughter’s best friend interrupt her lounging on the floor drinking sprite and eating chips. Most of us don’t start out too well. Still, she keeps going and she gets better and better and her daughter soon follows suit. Probably the only scene that I didn’t really think was fitting was Elizabeth after praying hard and realizing a problem in her marriage starts yelling at the devil and telling him he’s not going to have her marriage or her husband.

I find this problematic because I really don’t see anything in the Bible telling us to get into a shouting match with the devil and also too often we treat him like he’s omnipresent and can hear everything we say. Yet even if demons aren’t directly involved, I think in every marital destruction we experience the work of demons in the long-term, not as if they directly caused it, but it has been the work of the devil from the beginning to destroy the things of God, including marriage, and that destruction to today continues. Even if no evil entity ever tries to act on your marriage, you can still feel the effects of that from other marriages. (Our divorce culture has given us the idea that giving up or abandoning one another is okay for any reason and just fine for a Christian. That affects Christians who have no desire to divorce either.)

Elizabeth instead keeps changing around her husband and yes, this change gets her husband’s attention. She does not give back sarcastic answers when tragedies strike and she seeks to respect her husband. Men respond to this. After all, we crave respect and we go where the respect is. I found myself smiling at her actions in that I knew that she was reclaiming her marriage. What happens then? Well I’m not going to tell you the plot of the movie that far!

And I can also say this had an effect on my life. I’ve seen my wife going through some hard times and I’ve been doing everything in the world for her except seriously seriously praying for her. If you’re like me and wanting to do better, I have some suggestions. First, try to find a quiet place where you can be alone. Second, if you want to be good with time, don’t start off with a goal like an hour of prayer. You’re setting yourself up for failure that way. Set a short time like ten minutes and work up and if you have a device with a timer on it, feel free to use it so you’re not constantly wondering about the time. On my Kindle Fire, I have an app called Mobile Knee. I can write down prayer requests that I have and times those prayers have been answered as well as journal entries and Bible verses that help me.

In the end, I can say I encourage you to see this movie. It is an entertaining and touching film and I can say it made me take prayer more seriously and I “pray” I keep that up. If that was the goal of the producers, it has worked with at least one and I hope Christian movies keep improving like this one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/1/2015: Dee Dee Warren

What’s coming up on the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

End times. What’s it all about? What’s happening? Are we living in the last days? Can we expect Jesus to return any day now? Should we be fasting our seat belts for the rapture? In the words of Gary Demar, we have a kind of Last Days Madness going on with talk about Blood Moons and the reestablishment of the nation of Israel and wondering if there will be a third temple built. On the other hand, we have skeptics saying that Jesus predicted His return around 2,000 years ago and He got it wrong so how can we take Him seriously? Even C.S. Lewis said that this was a problem after his conversion.

But what if both sides are wrong in this?

And oddly enough, what if Jesus was right?

My guest this week is the offer of It’s Not The End of the World. This is a commentary on the Olivet Discourse as found in Matthew 24. She has been on the show before talking about abortion. Now she’s here to tell us about her passion of eschatology. Who is she?

PinkDeeDee

In her words:

Dee Dee Warren is a veteran of online theology debates having owned TheologyWeb.com for over a decade as well as hosting the PreteristSite and the PreteristPodcast which were the catalyst for her publication of “It’s Not the End of the World!” She is presently involved in Libertarian political activism.

The subject of this show will however be eschatology and for this, Dee Dee is a force to be reckoned with. DDW has been a bane to the existence of the “hyper-preterist” movement for some time, having come out of it herself, and she has also done debates on the topic of eschatology on Unbelievable?

In fact, from my own personal viewpoint, I had on my own managed to abandon dispensationalism, but I still was unsure of how everything fit in and frankly, wasn’t coo clear on what exactly orthodox Preterists believe. It was when DDW along with a friend of hers explained Preterism at a TheologyWeb convention and I got to ask them both questions that all of a sudden, the light dawned. It made sense. I left the meeting a convinced Preterist realizing that I was going this way all along and I have never looked back sense.

I am thrilled knowing that DDW’s commentary is now available in book format so I can look up any passage whenever I need to and as I have said, it is meticulously footnoted. DDW went through some awful suffering due to different beliefs on eschatology, and while it is not good that she went through that suffering we can safely say that like Joseph in prison, it has been used for much good.

I hope you’ll be watching your podcast feed for this next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast where we will look at the relationship between apologetics and eschatology.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/18/2015

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

Marriage. It’s all in the news today. It’s amazing that what has been argued by some as just a piece of paper is at the same time being argued as essential for the homosexual movement. What is it about marriage that has sparked such a debate? What is marriage? Is it just a connection of two people in love, or is it something different? How could we ever know? In order to answer these questions, I decided to have a scholar of marriage come on my show so this Saturday, I am honored to be bringing you Glenn Stanton.

GlennStanton

Glenn T. Stanton is the director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs and a research fellow at the Institute of Marriage and Family in Ottawa. He debates and lectures extensively on the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and parenting at universities and churches around the world. Stanton served the George W. Bush administration for many years as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement in the Head Start program.

Stanton is the author of five books about marriage and families, including “Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society,” “My Crazy, Imperfect Christian Family” and “Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting,” which was featured on C-SPAN BookTV. Stanton has also been interviewed on the Los Angeles NPR show, “AirTalk.” He is also a contributing author to nine others.

His latest book, “Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth,” explores how Christians should interact with gay or lesbian neighbors in a Christ-honoring way. He is also the author of “The Ring Makes All the Difference,” and “Secure Daughters, Confident Sons: How Parents Guide Their Children into Authentic Masculinity and Femininity.”

Stanton is a graduate of the University of West Florida with graduate degrees in philosophy and history. He now makes his home in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children.

We’ll be talking with Stanton about the SCOTUS ruling first to determine what his stance is on the matter and why he thinks the way he thinks. What are Christians to say about this? Does having something be the law of the land mean that it is actually true, or is this a case of trying to redefine something?

We’ll also then talk about what difference marriage really makes to a society and to a person. Many people today are wanting to live together before getting married. After all, why would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive? We also have a problem with a culture that readily turns to divorce. What role does sex play in a marriage? What difference does it make how you live your marriage if you are married?

These are all important questions and I am honored to have an expert in the field come on, particularly as my own wife and I get ready to celebrate five years together. I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Audience Participation Needed

Are you really playing your part? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you’re a sports fan, chances are you’ve gone to a stadium or similar venue and seen a game before. At the end of the game, you go home. You might buy some memorabilia or if possible get some autographs but other than that, your part is done. You can easily imagine doing the same if you attend a concert of your favorite band sometime. Another place you can picture your part being done is when you attend the Sunday service at your local church.

Wait. That last one doesn’t fit.

Unfortunately, too many Christians do think that they’re doing their full duty by attending a church service. Some think they’ve upped their duty by attending Bible Study as well. Believe it or not, while many of us hold to the spiritual gifts, there is not a spiritual gift of “Keeping a seat warm in a church.”

Many of you are looking at the world around you and wondering where things went wrong. If you are wondering that, then look in your mirror. That is where you will find the problem. What has gone wrong in our world is not that the world has been the world. That’s what we would expect. What has gone wrong is that the church has not been the church. A large part of it is this idea that we don’t want to offend anyone because if we offend people, well we’re not really showing them the love of Jesus.

You know, the Jesus who called out his opponents in public, shamed them greatly, called them broods of vipers and white-washed tombs, and was such a challenge to that culture that they ended up crucifying Him.

That Jesus.

Too many of us treat Christianity like a spectator sport and our duty is to go to church and then be a good person. (Because you know, so many people in this world avoid the goal of being a good person.) If you think you’re really contributing to the cause of Christ if you do those two things, quite frankly, you’re not. Many people also have an idea that they just need to worry about themselves and their children and forget the rest of the world. You also are part of the problem.

If you were a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc. you would be one constantly. You would seek to live in a way that conformed to your political beliefs and many of you would want to be informed on your beliefs. You would not be one of those just one day a week. If you were a vegan or a vegetarian, you would not lose sight of that if you went to a restaurant. You would remember what you eat and don’t eat and act accordingly. If you’re a husband or a wife, you are not those one day of the week. You are them every day. (And I fear many treat their marriages as a case of giving the bare minimum.) If you’re a parent, you are not a parent just one day of the week. You are constantly a parent.

And yet, Christianity is supposed to be the most important commitment in your life and so many people give it less attention than all of the above.

So what can you do?

Here are some steps.

First off, support. Give your support to the people who need and deserve it. Let’s start with your pastor. Believe it or not, being a pastor really is a hard job, that is, if you’re doing it right. You have administrative duties of the church, budgets to work on, counseling to have to give, preparation all week for a sermon, your own personal study, taking care of your family, and your own spiritual life has to be fed. You know how rare it is to get appreciation as a pastor? That’s why I’ve made it a note to let my pastor know that I appreciate him from time to time. Do it every week and it will likely become something expected. Just out of the blue though, send an encouraging email to your pastor and let him know you appreciate him. It could be the boost that he needs in the day.

This also applies to the people you respect in other fields. There are many of us who look at certain people that we interact with as valuable ones in what we do, and we so rarely take the time to thank them for what they have done in our lives. Don’t assume that it is known. It might not be known. Even if it is known, that little note that shows up from time to time is quite a boost. (I in fact have followed the advice of my own pastor and made a folder called “encouragement” where I put encouraging notes and emails and such that I get so that when I get in a slump later on, I can review them.)

Second, give. There are many ways that you can give. Don’t stop with the bare minimum. First off, give to your local church. They’re trying to serve Christ in your community. Next, give to those outside of the church. Don’t waste those finances on these prosperity preachers you see on TBN and elsewhere. Give to ministries that you see are producing real fruit. You would be surprised how much your favorite ministries could do with some small support. Don’t think what you give is too small. It’s not. Creflo Dollar made a scandal in the church by asking 200,000 people to donate $300 so he could get a jet.

With our expenses here, we would be set if we had just 5 people donating $300 a month. We could probably do less, but just consider that an approximation. When you support ministries like this, you are saying you want the person to be able to devote a large portion of their time and energy to their ministry. (I say a large portion since to be clear, a person has to take care of their own family and their own spiritual life as well) To speak in small amounts, the above numbers could be altered to speak of 300 people donating $5 a month. Many other ministries could likewise do well with just a large contingent of small donations.

Many can’t give financially, but you can give in other ways. You can share the work of the person that you admire and be their biggest fan. You can offer your services in other ways, such as we have a team here of people who volunteer to keep this web site running. You can talk to your pastor about seeing if they can come and speak at your church or seeing if your pastor would consider them as a ministry worthy of your support.

What else do you do after this? Study. Learn something about Christianity. If you think this should be the most important facet of your life, learn about it. Many know more about their favorite sports team, TV show, band, or political party than they do about their Christianity. This is a great shame. You are not doing your Christian duty just by going and enjoying your worship service. Make it a point to really learn something about your Christianity. I imagine the Gospel would be better shared here in America if we all at least had a basic apologetic beyond our personal testimony.

Teach your children about this as well. Many of our young people are growing up and looking at issues like redefining marriage and don’t have a single clue why this should be a great area of concern for them. If they grow up with a light faith that consists of being an individualistic all about me walk, well don’t be surprised if they jump ship as soon as something comes along that offers better benefits to them. Of course, that won’t happen in college at all. Not a chance. Your children will only experience a culture of people drinking and having a lot of fun doing it and getting to have rampant sex with anyone who comes along and as we know, young people are not at all tempted by alcohol and sex.

Honor your family as well. Following those principles in Ephesians and Colossians on running a family will work great for all involved. If we want to find out why the world isn’t honoring marriage today, it’s because the church failed to honor it first. Live your life in such a way in accordance with Biblical values in marriage and parenting. If you’re single, then follow a similar principle. No sex. If you plan to marry, date someone of the opposite sex because you want to find out if they’re someone to marry. Never treat someone of the opposite sex as if they’re someone to just fulfill your desires.

After all of this, really walk the walk. If it’s not being uncomfortable for you, you’re doing it wrong. Treat your Christianity like a lifestyle. Treat it as you are living in service of the King, because you are. Learn about this and see how it applies in every single area of your life.

Christianity is not a spectator sport. You’re either helping the Great Commission or you’re hindering it. There is no middle ground.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What More Can We Do?

What options do Christians have to make sure their liberties are defended? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night, I was discussing the court’s decision Friday with my men’s group as we tried to decide what we could do. The first option that came up was vote. Vote for leaders that align with our beliefs and get them to do the work they’re supposed to do. Now I have no problem with this in principle. That’s how we all vote after all. My problem is that we often do this as if the solution is the government and we have to start at the top. We are in essence in many ways saying we want government to be our savior. It cannot be. Government is in many ways a necessary evil. We have to have government just because men are evil and there needs to be a visible representation that we are not a law unto ourselves.

But what can we do otherwise? Last time I said we can be the church. We are still to do that. The Roman Empire got turned upside down by a group that was a definite minority at the start. This group did not have the internet or CNN or any multimedia to spread their message. They did write documents, but they relied a lot on word of mouth. Somehow, they did it. Somehow, they overcame. They overcame so much that at this moment, there are billions all over the world who are ready to lay down their lives for Jesus Christ right now.

We are not in a minority, but the homosexual movement started out that way, and they got their work done. We Christians didn’t do as good a job. Consider Chick-Fil-A Day. We were tired of what the homosexual movement was doing to businesses like Chick-Fil-A, so we had so many of us go to Chick-Fil-A that day and their sales were greater than they had ever been before. We can consider that a great victory. When we had this great victory then, we went and…..did absolutely nothing. We sat back down as if our work was done. Yes. We will stand up for a chicken sandwich, but we will not stand up for marriage.

And then A&E went after Duck Dynasty. We were angry again and a Facebook page was set up immediately demanding that Duck Dynasty be restored to its original status. When Cracker Barrel started to join in saying they were pulling Duck Commander material, we protested immediately and Cracker Barrel retracted immediately. Eventually, A&E did as well. We had our victory. We took this great momentum and with that momentum we went and did….absolutely nothing. So it looks like for Christians, it was more important to get our television shows the way we want them, but it wasn’t important to stand up for marriage.

No more then.

If we want to change things, we have to be willing to do the work ourselves. We can’t depend on our leaders to do all the work. Even in the Christian community, we can’t count on the big name defenders of marriage to do all the work. It will take the work of those of us who are laymen to get the job done. I recommend doing what I’ve done. I’ve already formed a group here in Knoxville for those of us who are like-minded to start meeting together and equipping one another. We will also be praying for our nation together and making sure we’re humbling ourselves and repenting for any wrongs we’ve done. Let’s be clear. We can think the homosexual community has done wrong to marriage, but the heterosexual community did it first.

This might seem small, but that’s how these start off. We start from the bottom and go up, just like the early church did. The early church did not start by trying to change the government and making a march on Rome. They just spoke to the people around them and got them to see the importance of being a Christian. We can do the same thing.

If you really think there is a problem here, then do something about it, just like the homosexual activists did. If you think there’s a problem and you do nothing about it, you’re really being a part of the problem. Be a part of the solution.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Slavery and the Church….Again

Is the church responsible for slavery? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So here we’ve had a terrible tragedy that has took place in Charleston and once again, supposedly racism is an epidemic sweeping the country right now. Now I’m of the opinion that no matter what you do, there will always be racism because people are sinful like that and because we view with suspicion that which is different from us. Of course, we must remember to never let a good crisis go to waste and so Huffington Post has a piece up by Carol Kuruvilla on how white Christians used the Bible and the confederate flag to oppress people. (Of course, one can be sure the implications of this are supposed to reach far past slavery and to Christians being great oppressors today.)

Of course, there’s no doubt there were too many people who used the Bible to justify slavery just like there were people who used science to justify the eugenics movement. This no more means we should discard the Bible than it does that we should discard science. It would be best to follow the adage attributed to Augustine that you never judge a philosophy by its misuse. What happened was horrid in the south no doubt, but absent from Kuruvilla’s report is any of the response to this. Sure, she says the Northern Baptists were opposed to slavery. What is not said is that most Christians around the world were already opposed to slavery. She wants to focus on one people group, though a sizable one to be sure, and say that these are the main representatives we should look at.

What made it so hard over here? Mark Noll says first off the arguments against slavery from a Biblical position depended on understanding the context of the Bible and looking deeper than many others did who just wanted what was “clear” to them. As he says in The Civil War As A Theological Crisis:

“On the other front, nuanced biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because they were nuanced. This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly from the page. Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems as well as of the actually existing conditions in the slave states; and it demanded that sophisticated interpretative practice replace a commonsensically literal approach to the sacred text. In short, this was an argument of elites requiring that the populace defer to its intellectual betters. As such, it contradicted democratic and republican intellectual instincts. In the culture of the United States, as that culture had been constructed by three generations of evangelical Bible believers, the nuanced biblical argument was doomed.”

So what made the Civil War a theological crisis? What separated us from the rest of the world? It was that we had a view about ourselves as a special people that God was guiding. It was a sort of manifest destiny. We believed in democracy greatly and so we treated the Bible the same way. The Bible should be just as clear to the man on the street and one does not need to do deep study to find out what is being said. This is still the approach of many fundamentalists today, which includes a large segment of internet atheists who read the Bible the exact same way their Christian counterparts do. They just believe exactly opposite.

It wasn’t the Bible then that was the problem so much as how we thought about ourselves. This is also prevalent in many Christian circles today where people are looking for signs for everything that they do, as if God is supposed to personally guide them. It shows up when people think the Bible was written in a style that is obviously apparent to 21st century Westerners instead of bothering to study its context. To many atheists, this can sound like an excuse. In reality, it’s simply saying to treat the Bible with the same respect you’d treat any other document from another time, culture, place, setting, and in another language.

Also noteworthy is that Kuruvilla ignores any ancient history on this. When Christianity first showed up, slavery was practically if not entirely universal in the Roman Empire. The thought of removing slavery and having a functioning empire would be like thinking we could do without something like automobiles or IPhones today. Make the suggestion and you will be met with uncomprehending stares. To us, it makes no sense because we have a moral background that has been so heavily influenced by Christianity. That was the Roman Empire. What system really brought about the end of it ultimately? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with Christ and ends with “ianity.”

The church had a history of treating slaves first with respect and then eventually setting them free. Philemon could be called the Emancipation Proclamation of the New Testament. Christians would often raise up money to buy slaves just for the purpose of setting them free. It was Bathilda, wife of Clovis II, who really brought slavery to a halt, but its death had long been started beforehand because Christians said everyone was in the image of God so no man should be the property of another man. Did it get started later? Yes. Unfortunately it did, but it was Christians again, like Wilberforce, who rose up to stop it.

Make no mistake. Many Christians have done stupid stupid things in the past. Many of them have done wicked things that we should all be ashamed of, but let’s be fair and not overlook the many good things that have been done. If all that is presented is one side of the story, then of course that one side looks compelling. Let us remember the main cause of slavery was really more of our egos about us being a special people than anything else. Of course, some people thinking they are special today is certainly not being used to oppress anyone else out there now is it?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What is Tolerance?

If you say you are a tolerant person, do you practice what you preach? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve had some time to think about the notion of tolerance lately after an event on my wife’s Facebook page over the week. She posted something about the transgenderism issue going on that I and many others found humorous. The first comment however referred to her as a judgmental, well, I don’t speak that way. Naturally as a husband, I don’t stand by and let my wife undergo a severe insult like this. Had it been something milder, we would have a discussion about it, but not in this case.

What strikes me when something like this happens however is that the people who complain the most tend to be the ones who are the champions of tolerance the most. Ironically, the ones that I find who want to champion tolerance the most turn out to be the least tolerant, and this is because our culture really doesn’t know what tolerance is any more. We have confused tolerance of persons with tolerance of ideas. We have also confused tolerance with acceptance.

For instance, I think Islam is really a very wicked system. I do. At the same time, I know there are many Muslims who just want to live peaceful lives and do not support what goes on with ISIS or anything like that. Now I will be glad to debate these Muslims on the nature of Jesus and the reality of the resurrection any time. I think their belief system is wrong and the evidence shows that. Despite that, if some want to build a mosque in my city, I think they have every right to build a mosque and I will defend that. That’s what freedom of religion means in America. As long as they’re observing the law peacefully, they have the right to worship as they see fit. I would also support them if they were being forced to sell pork to someone or even if a Muslim bakery was asked to make a cake for a homosexual wedding since they disagree with that as well. That’s their right.

Note I will tolerate the people and I will accept them as people, even if I think their belief system ultimately is a source of great evil today. I will not accept their belief system. I cannot see it as entirely true or as the way of God, but the people are still people.

I have many friends who are atheists. Will I be able to put up a meme about what I see as poor argumentation on the part of many atheists? Sure will. Don’t have a problem with it. Humor and satire are a powerful tool. Many of my friends who are atheists will either ignore it saying this is a difference they accept because they know who I am, or some of them will say “I know what kinds of atheists he’s talking about and I’m not one of those.” At the same time, this doesn’t mean that if an internet atheist type went into cardiac arrest in front of me that I would ignore them. I recently had a dialogue with an atheist who was posting things and saying he had a hard time posting while driving. I told him to please wait. The debate can go on later. A dialogue with me is not worth him risking his life. I really meant it. I would mean it for anyone like that.

Where tolerance exists, there must first exist a real point of disagreement. There is something you do not like. Yesterday, my wife wanted to get some peanut butter cookie mix at the store. Why? She doesn’t like peanut butter, but she knows her husband loves it. That is not something I tolerate. That is something I celebrate. Tonight, after a couples’ connection meeting, we are going with a couple to the Cheesecake Factory to discuss our upcoming fifth wedding anniversary. Now the last time I was there, with my finicky eating, I did not care for the menu too much and I was surrounded by people and everything was really loud. I honestly thought this must be some idea of what Hell is like. So tonight, I will instead be tolerating that. I would much rather go elsewhere, but I know Allie really likes the Cheesecake Factory. I can tolerate it for her sake.

The more I thought about tolerance, the more I thought how ironically, true tolerance really does deliver everything false tolerance claims to give. The false tolerance is this idea that you must accept everything and if not, you are being intolerant and we will shut you down for your intolerance. True tolerance says you have a right to what you think and we can discuss it, which is what I always prefer. While I do believe in a firm hand for many, my far better conversations always are with those who I think are honestly open to false ideas. There were many people who disagreed with Allie’s meme she put up. That’s fine. I expect that. We talk about it then. I have no problem with that. Believe it or not, that’s the kind of dialogue I do prefer.

Our false tolerance today says you’re not even allowed to have a dissenting opinion. If you dissent from the group, we will label you as intolerant, a bigot, hate-filled, etc. I hardly enter any debates I see today on the homosexual issue because I see the words of homophobe and all of the others above thrown around. I always get amazed to see that when a group comes out saying they support traditional marriage any more, that you can just go to their Facebook page and see the vitriol being spilled out. It’s amazing that at the same time, the people doing this are talking about how hateful the other side is and how intolerant they are.

While those who champion tolerance say they value diversity, it is those who allow dissenting opinions who are the true valuers of diversity. While I do not consider myself a part of the ID movement, I have had people say before “Well if you wanted ID taught in the classrooms, do you want all other creation accounts taught?” My response to this was always “Why not?” You see, if someone comes from a Muslim or Hindu culture or any other people group and wants to stand up and share why they think their account of creation is true, let them. Just let them be ready to answer questions about it as well. Why do I care about counter ideas being presented? I’m convinced Christianity can win in the marketplace of ideas, so bring forward the competitors!

True tolerance also values open-mindedness. Now this is not the same as saying you can’t have a strong opinion or be sure that you’re right. If we are arguing for a position, then we will be sure that we are right. Of course, there are ideas you hold with a greater degree of certainty based on the evidence. If every belief you hold is a hill you’re ready to die on, you’re going to have a hard time. This is a problem I see with modern fundamentalism for instance. On the Christian side, you have inerrancy, young-earth creationism, and any other belief being one that we have to stand on this hill and not let it go because if this hill goes, the whole thing goes! On the atheist side, you have this idea that you can’t admit there could be anything whatsoever historical about the Bible or that anyone could be justified in believing God exists. This is one reason I think Christ mythicism is so popular.

Of course, there are some positions on both sides that if they are shown to be false, the position will crumble. If you show that God does exist, then yes, atheism is dead. If you show that Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is dead. However, you can be absolutely certain of your position on these issues and still say “But I am willing to hear what argument you have on the other side.” The problem with too many people is that there cannot be an argument. If you’re a Christian, well you’re just a mindless fool who is irrational and anti-science. If you’re an atheist, well you’re just sold to sin and your eyes are blinded by the devil and you hate God.

True tolerance is also the most loving to people. It admits we have differences between us. These are significant differences. We can even think the position that the other person holds is remarkably ignorant in some ways, but at the same time we still value the person. In fact, there is unlikely to be anyone on the planet that we will agree with 100% on everything. My own wife and I disagree on some issues. She knows that my eyes roll with the futurist position which she holds. It’s okay. We can have discussions on that and we can disagree. (Actually, for some reason, she likes to see me debate with futurists.)

If you reject a friend because they do not disagree with you on a particular topic, one has to ask what kind of friendship you really have. Unfortunately, I have seen this kind of thing happen. Generally, if someone gets a block from me on Facebook, they have to do something really severe, or they just have to be the kind of person in the debate arena who is a time drainer and that if I keep interacting with them, I will be wasting my time on them. Yes. There are actually some Christians on that list of mine because they are too much of a time drainer when they get on their own soapboxes.

What many of us see with the modern tolerance movement is that they are not tolerant at all. No dissent and questioning will be allowed. You are not to oppose the tolerati! For all the time that we’ve heard the good news of this Gospel of tolerance, one would think the proclaimers of it would practice it.

True tolerance is to be valued. We can value the person always and care for them, but we are not to tolerate true evil that is done. I am convinced that the shooter from Charleston in the recent news needs to get at least jail for life for what he did, at least that much. That is an evil we cannot accept in our society. At the same time, I with many others hopes that he will get the Gospel in prison and find forgiveness and that we can pray for him. I would also be willing to admit that prayer is something I need to work on anyway, hence I could soon write a blog series on it as that is often the best way I teach myself as well.

Disagree by all means, but if you want to proclaim yourself a champion of tolerance, be sure to practice what you preach.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Is Bruce An Exception?

What do you do when a man’s very being says he’s a woman? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife shared on her Facebook a meme of some soldiers going to say they were going to congratulate Bruce Jenner for his courage, obviously said in sarcasm. Some of her friends from high school showed up to try to correct on her on this point which naturally means that her apologist husband has to go to work. I spent some time telling one that Bruce is still a man and why should we think otherwise? The reply I got was that “her” very being said “she” was a woman. Well that’s interesting. What about these other cases then?

Here for instance is Jerusalem Syndrome.

In this case, someone goes to Jerusalem who has otherwise been a normal person, and then believes themselves to be a biblical figure, like Jesus, Samson, or Mary.
If we are loving to such people, should we treat them like they are such figures, or should we seek to get them the help they need even though their very being says they are such figures?

Here is Cotard Delusion. The person with this delusion is convinced that they are dead and often have evidence from their own experience to back that! Their very being again tells them they’re dead. Are we loving to them if we treat them like they’re dead?

Here is Capgras Syndrome. In this, the person thinks their loved one has been replaced by a double or impostor. Is the loving thing to do agree with them even though they are mentally convinced of this?

Fregoli Delusion:
In this case, the person thinks that multiple people are really one or two persons in disguise. Is it loving to go along with this belief?

Apotemnophilia. In this case, the person thinks they should amputate healthy parts of their body. Is the loving thing to do to rush this person off to see a surgeon?

After writing that, I found more delusions and I’m sure there are still more out there.

Here is Truman Show Delusion. If you’ve ever seen the movie, that’s what it’s like. The person thinks they’re living in a reality show with cameras and actors all around them.

There is also even a video game delusion. In this, the person, yes, thinks that they are in a video game. One case of this involved stealing a more powerful car at gunpoint so someone could get bonus points.

There is also clinical lycanthropy. In this case, the person believes that they have turned into a werewolf.

We recognize each of these as delusions and we do so by looking at reality. Why not do the same in the case of Bruce?

Because I do not intend to participate in the delusion, I will still be referring to Bruce as Bruce. I will still be using the masculine pronouns in description. I have no desire whatsoever to join the Cult of Caitlyn.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 5/30/2015: George Yancey

What’s coming up on this Saturday’s episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many Christians today find their opinions aren’t exactly welcome in America. There is an increasing hostility towards Christians, which can certainly be seen on the internet, and Christians are often written off as if they were idiots who just believed everything based on blind faith. Of course, it could be that this is just a misconception on the part of Christians. Maybe we’re looking at the information wrong. Maybe we’re taking some of the personal experience that we’ve had and extrapolating it to a level that is not justified. Perhaps that is really what is going on. One could think that, but it would be more difficult to think that after reading So Many Christians, So Few Lions, and this Saturday one of the co-authors of that book will be on my show. Meet George Yancey.

george-yancey

According to his bio:

“Dr. George Yancey is a Professor of sociology at the University of North Texas. He has published several research articles on the topics of institutional racial diversity, racial identity, academic bias and anti-Christian hostility. His books include Compromising Scholarship (Baylor University Press), a book that explores religious and political biases in academia, There is no God (Rowman and Littlefield), a book that investigates atheism in the United States, and So Many Christians, So Few Lions (Rowman and Littlefield) a book that assesses Christianophobia in the United States. He currently is working to create the first Christian Studies center on a secular campus.”

We’ll be talking about his book on Christianophobia. Upfront, it’s not the term I would prefer to use as I really don’t care for describing an attitude as a phobia, such as in the case of so-called homophobia. (A point I actually agree with Peter Boghossian on!) I do think Yancey got the term from somewhere else. Still, the meaning that is put behind the term is something that he documents by sending out surveys to atheistic groups themselves and having them answer questions about their attitudes towards religious people and especially towards Christianity. The results are quite disturbing.

We’ll be talking with him on the subjects and how he did his research and what it means for us. How did he take the necessary steps to avoid bias in his research? Has his research been recognized by anyone else outside of the field? Has he received any feedback since the time of the writing to show that what he is talking about is going on? What does he think Christians need to do in order to make sure that they are doing their best to change the attitude that the popular culture has towards Christians?

I hope you’ll be here to join us and we are currently working on updating the latest episodes and getting them on the site for those of you who are concerned. As the summer gets closer I suspect that we will have a lot more time. Please do leave an ITunes review of the show also!

In Christ,
Nick Peters