Category: popular culture

Thoughts on Risen

What do I think about this new movie? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’ve lately seen a slew of movies that are based on the Bible. Some of these have been good. Some have not been so good. (Noah and Exodus) The latest one to come out is a movie called Risen. Today, I went to see that one with the in-laws and my wife. All of us agreed that it was a good movie. (For those interested, Mike Licona’s endorsement since he was right next to me was “awesome.”)

My thoughts on it were a mix. I thought the movie was good in that it was good to see the resurrection being treated as a real event of history, which it is, and it’s good that a company like Sony is behind it. I also do think that it was largely respectful to the Biblical worldview. I cannot comment on the acting or matters like that. It’s hard to explain, but unless it’s just outright awful, I don’t really notice that.

Some people I know did not like the fact that Mary Magdalene was depicted as a prostitute. This indeed is an old myth that has been around for well over a thousand years but really has no historical credibility. Still, my other issues were more the fact that I think the film is something a Western audience would appreciate, but I did not find fit too well with the biblical culture.

For those who don’t know, the plot revolves around a Roman tribune who is told to investigate what has happened to Jesus since rumors are flying that he has been resurrected. The tribune approaches it much like the skeptic calling in anyone who says that Jesus is risen and finding out who told them that and trying to track down the disciples. I really do not want to go into it much beyond that because I really do want people to go and see the film.

One aspect that did not fit in was when Mary Magdalene comes in and is asked where Jesus is, she replies that the tribune should open his heart. This could be what we would say in a Western culture, but I can imagine it would be quite meaningless to an Eastern culture. We have a concept of looking within that is so basic to us that we miss the fact that this is really something unique in history and different from the majority world.

The main message was also said to be that we have eternal life. Now I think there is of course truth to that, but I think if we just make it eternal life, we miss a lot. (And it is odd to say that as eternal life is something grand in itself.) This is the problem that we have in our culture. We have a disconnect quite often. Why do we have eternal life because Jesus rose from the dead?

A Jew when asked what a difference it makes that Jesus is risen would likely speak about God having come to His people and the Kingdom being here at last. We miss a lot in our culture because we don’t know what difference it makes to say that Jesus is the Messiah and we don’t know what difference the story of Israel makes in all of this. We could often in our evangelism go straight from Genesis 3 to the resurrection of Jesus. All that stuff in the middle matters a great deal.

Still, the greatest challenge is the practical challenge. We today would say “If I saw that Jesus was risen, my life would never be the same.” The problem is so many of us have immense evidence that Jesus is who He said He was and did rise from the dead, but what change do we have? Everyone in Risen who came to believe spoke about what a great difference it made. Why is it that we in the modern Western church don’t seem to see that great difference?

So in conclusion, are there some matters to be worked on? Yeah. There still are, but this is still a film that we as Christians should be standing behind and supporting. We can want the perfect film, but if we keep shooting down films and not supporting them because they don’t reach such a high standard, it will easily stop filmmakers from even trying. Let’s encourage this one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

How pro-choice is NARAL?

Anybody want some Doritos? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So last night my wife was wanting to watch this program that frankly did not make any sense to me. It involved a bunch of grown men just running into each other constantly, but in the middle, it had these commercials and some were quite funny. I couldn’t understand why these commercials were being interrupted by this strange performance. I was even more puzzled when I heard it had to do with some falconry event about a Superb Owl and that Herodotus had written about it long ago.

However, one commercial that stood out to me was one that was done by Doritos. Rather than tell you about it, I think I should just show you.

Cute commercial. Right? If you were anything like me, you just laughed at it. One of my friends had texted me and was saying that NARAL was upset about it. Something about humanizing fetuses. At the time, I was sure he was joking about that. (In fact, as I look over their Twitter feed, it looks like if they are choosing one thing, it is they are choosing to not have a sense of humor.)

What did they say about this?

– that ad using tactic of humanizing fetuses & sexist tropes of dads as clueless & moms as uptight.

I wish I was making it up. I’m not. NARAL is complaining about humanizing fetuses apparently. Well there’s a bit of wisdom you need to remember about this.

offendedpeople

You see, most of us watched it and enjoyed it. NARAL has a habit of wanting to psychoanalyze anything and look for something that can offend them. In fact, there was even a point last night where a video was made of Super Bowl babies. Who were these? They were ones who had their parents watching the game and then one thing led to another and that’s how they were born. NARAL’s reply was that sports fans should use protection.

Because, like, you know, getting pregnant is the most horrible thing ever.

When I saw that commercial, I really thought a lot of those people looked pretty happy. They were glad to be alive. They were celebrating that their parents chose life. (And last I checked, I thought the pro-choice side was supposed to be pro-choice. Why are they so upset when some people actually make the choice that they’d like to have children?)

Now for my part, I have done a number of podcasts where I have interviewed people on the topic of abortion to answer the challenge of the pro-choice side. I will simply put those here.

Megan Almon.

Gretchen Coburn.

Clinton Wilcox.

Freda Bush.

Jay Watts.

Peter D. Williams.

DeeDee Warren.

Dave Sterrett.

Lori Peters.

Daniel Rodgers.

As for me and my house, I think we’ll celebrate the life that we have and maybe do so by making the choice to go out and buy some Dorito’s because I like seeing ads like that, especially if they get the people at NARAL so riled up that they end up showing their true colors.

Happy Superb Owl Sunday NARAL.

In Christ,

Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/30/2016: Daniel Rodger

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

January is the month that I prefer to tackle the topic of the evil of abortion. As I had said on the last episode, when the Canaanites sacrificed their children, while it was certainly a wicked act, one could say they did it for the good of the harvest and in the long run the community as a whole. When we do it today, we sacrifice our children at the altar of convenience. This isn’t something that’s going away any time soon and the recent debacle involving Planned Parenthood is an example of that. We in America are seeing this all go on and many of us have hopes that we can change our society to remove this evil.

But how do things look across the pond?

To discuss that, I decided to interview someone from over there. My guest this next Saturday will be Daniel Rodger. Who is he?
kings college card

According to his bio:

I work in the NHS and have an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies & History and a Masters degree in Ethics. I also work as a prolife apologist for Life Training Institute here in the UK, and also run the UK Apologetics Facebook group and tweet @failedatheist.

He also wanted me to mention that he loves being a cultural agitator. Yeah. I think we’re going to get along well.

How are things in the UK when it comes to the topic of abortion. For instance, the UK is seen as a far more secular country than the US is. Also, the UK has a much more nationalized health care system. Does this make a difference? What are the political debates going on around the topic of abortion?

Of course, we’ll more generally discuss the case for the life of the unborn and why abortion is wrong and should be seen as wrong. We will ask the hard questions about the topic of abortion that are often raised by pro-abortion advocates and discuss issues of freedom and liberty. Again, things could be different across the pond in a country where the Constitution isn’t exactly being debated.

Naturally, I hope to discuss something that is going on here in America and that’s the Planned Parenthood issue. Recently, we have seen this surface again and Christians are debating if the indictment is a good thing or a bad thing. I’ve seen some see it as a huge miscarriage of justice. I’ve also seen some look at it and say that this means Planned Parenthood itself will have to go to trial and the world will get to see just how twisted that they are. Does Daniel Rodger have any opinions on this and what does he think of the concept of going undercover to collect information from Planned Parenthood anyway?

I hope you’ll be joining us on the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast and yes, we are working on getting the podcasts up on ITunes again. I suspect that it will be soon.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Cyberbully and self-esteem

What can we learn from the self-esteem movement? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A few days ago my wife and I got Netflix and were just browsing and seeing what was on and came across a movie called Cyberbully. Allie was curious about it so I figured I’d turn it on seeing as I know that’s a subject of interest to her. My wife dealt a lot with bullies when she was in school and there have been people online who have been quite hurtful to her and those people I do not put up with.

The story is about a teenage girl in high school named Taylor who has a mother who lets her use the family computer, but she puts up good restrictions that Taylor thinks are just over the top. Then comes the day that the mother gives Taylor some trust and gives her her own laptop. Unfortunately, what Taylor does immediately with her girlfriends is goes to a social site that her mother and said she shouldn’t get on and immediately the trouble starts ranging from fake profiles wanting to talk to her and then spreading false information to school bullies making embarrassing videos about her and seeing all the comments that are made. At this point, Taylor has a suicide attempt and then finds the help she needs and begins the work to stop cyberbullying. The movie I think is overdramatic at times, though I do agree we have a problem with a lot of young people on the internet.

As I was watching with Allie, I was telling her that I found it incredible that centuries ago, people that age would already be productive members of society and could very well be parents of their own raising children to be productive members. Today, they’re more often just kids who don’t have a clue about the real world and break down based on what their peers say about them. It showed me in fact the utter bankruptcy of our self-esteem movement.

Now does that mean I’m against a positive attitude? No. Does that mean I’m against people feeling good about themselves? No. What I am opposed to is the focus of us being us and that we think our goodness resides in us. Too often in our society we have concepts like goodness just floating around in the air and we don’t even know what they are, but we believe that somehow they apply. We also tell people that they’re good because they’re unique, but then so is everyone else in the world. There will never be another person like you? Of course, and that could be said to everyone else in the world.

Thus, we have a goodness without any foundation and when it is attacked, we crumple over immediately. It’s as if when someone says something to us, we treat it as automatically true. I found myself wondering what would happen if we lived in an honor-shame society. For instance, the fake account that befriends Taylor has the person behind it accusing Taylor of giving them an STD. Immediately, everyone responding to it just agrees immediately. In an honor-shame society, Taylor could have asked for evidence. “Okay. You say that happened? Prove it. Put up a document from a doctor.” She could ask “If we had a date, what did we do? Where did we go? Do you have any receipts?” Instead, the focus immediately goes to how Taylor feels about it instead of asking “Is this true?”

Had that been done and the person been unable to respond, then Taylor would have won the day and the phony would have been seen for a phony. Instead, Taylor just accepts the criticism head on and accepts that everyone just believes it instead of thinking “Wow. My classmates are just really gullible.” When fellow classmates make a stupid video about her and she responds with an attempted suicide, it is in fact a way of saying “Everyone else will believe this, including the people who know me best.” Of course, Christians should try to live in peace with all men, but there are times that we just have to move on.

The self-esteem movement does not work because we have no foundation for our goodness and value then. They’re just concepts floating in the air. In Christianity, our goodness does not come from us. We are good because of who it is that we are in relationship with. God is the source of our goodness. We have taught a generation of children to believe that they are good without any real reason other than that they are who they are and they find it hard to believe when that’s called into question. Ironically, we want them to have the kind of “faith” that skeptics accuse Christians of having in their own goodness.

We can also add in that we have not presented children with the proper thinking skills to analyze claims and see what’s true and what isn’t. It’s fortunate that this girl had a good mother in the house (The father had abandoned them for a younger girl) and that’s also an essential part as parents definitely need to be more careful with their children online, but parents also need to be teaching children where their true value comes from. When parents don’t do this, then they can expect the worst to happen.

One other thing needs to be said. Too often in this we’re making our focus be on the bullies and trying to change them. Instead, let’s work on empowering the victims and the people who are prone to bullying. There will always be people who want to do evil. There will always be bullies among us. Of course, we must use discipline at times, but our focus should be on helping those who are weak among us. Build them up so what bullies say doesn’t matter.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why They Don’t Go To Church

Why are there people identified as Nones? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife and I had a trip this morning and when I turned the car on, it was on talk radio, which I normally prefer to listen to because I really don’t care for most of the music today. We live in Tennessee and we’re still in the Bible Belt so we heard a conversation about nones and most people calling in to this local show were talking about material that would not have any interest to the nones. The nones are people who when asked to give a religion say none. It does not necessarily mean they are atheists. It just means that they do not choose to identify with any religion and the whole discussion on the show was based on a statement that only 18% of people attend church weekly.

Before too long, callers were calling in to argue over when the Sabbath was and verses were being misapplied left and right. Then we had the caller calling in to talk about salvation being only in Jesus. Okay. I agree with that, but that says squat about the nones. In fact, as I listened, I realized that this was the problem. Imagine going to someone who is a none and telling them salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. They might first wonder what you’re talking about with salvation and then if anything you’ll be told that they’re happy you found something that works for you, but it just doesn’t work for them.

Or picture the lady who called in and wanted to talk about sodomy some and how our nation is under judgment. (I use the term sodomy also because that is what she used.) Do I think homosexual activity is a sin. Yes. But here’s the problem. You go up to someone today who is a younger person and you tell them that homosexual behavior is wrong. Why? If all you have is “The Bible says so” then they will just be “So much more reason to not trust the Bible.” You could also get told about eating shrimp or mixed clothing or something of that sort. (In fact, this lady speaking had no problem with speaking about Old Testament Law and covenants as if there was a one-to-one parallel.)

But what about the Bible? Well if you tell them that the Bible is the Word of God, they’ll want to know why. What reason can you give? God says so? That’s entirely circular. If you point to your personal testimony, well many of the nones will be glad to tell you a personal testimony of how they went to church growing up and it just doesn’t work for them. Outside of the nones, I can show you plenty of Mormons who have a personal testimony. Do you accept their testimony that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God?

The problem is we’re not reaching the nones because they don’t really think they have something that we can provide for them and we have made church one of the last places that they want to go to. Many of you might be familiar with the work of Michael Patton from Credo House. He wound up getting addicted to pain killers and went to rehab and found that church would be a lot better if it was like that. People were open and honest and able to admit their failures. No one would bother trying to look good around everyone else because hey, if you’re in rehab, you already have some issues and you know it’s a safe place. Why don’t they do that in church?

Because church is not a safe place and so many Christians seem to think that if they are true Christians, they will show they do not have any major problems in their lives.

Church is also seen as a place that’s really pretty boring, and how many of us can relate. How many times is it that nagging can be called preaching? Why is it that the word “preach” has such a negative connotation to it? Frankly, if we think about something that we would want to do for entertainment, most of us would not go and sit down and listen to somebody speak for about half an hour. It’s just not something that we do. Add in especially that you don’t want to go and hear someone talk about how you’re supposedly doing everything wrong in life. Most sermons you hear at church are things you’ve also heard before if you grew up in the church. Church becomes a habit or a routine and you go mainly because some people are there that you like hanging out with.

Let’s also hit the big one. The question of truth is no longer discussed. Christianity has been reduced to an ethical system, as if Jesus just came to show us how to love one another and that was it, which entirely misses the point of the cross. Oh wait. The cross was just so we could go to Heaven when we die, which entirely bypasses any idea of “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” We act as if the Christian life is just being a good person. You don’t need Christianity for that. The Greek and Roman teachers of the time of Jesus could have taught you how to live a life of virtue. Was Jesus highly advanced in His teaching? Absolutely, but most Romans, Greeks, and Jews were not going around in the first century struggling with an internal sin problem. They knew they weren’t perfect, but they had systems set in place already.

Absent from the church is any notion that Christianity is, you know, true. It’s completely foreign to our thinking to consider that we believe that a man came who was fully God in nature, lived among us and taught the Kingdom of God, died on a cross, and then rose again in a new and glorified body. We somehow forget that this is not just Star Wars happening long long ago in a galaxy far far away. We claim that these are events of history, and yet we have no reason normally for why we say that they are history beyond “The Bible says so” and when we got to why the Bible should be taken seriously, there is nothing. In fact, we seem to treat it like a virtue if we believe for no reason. After all, that is what faith really is.

Well no, that’s not what faith is. Faith is more trust in that which has been shown to be reliable. Believing for the sake of believing is not a virtue. It would not be a virtue to marry someone without having any reason for thinking they’re marriage material. It would not be a virtue to hire someone to watch your kids without any reason to think that they’re competent. It would not be virtue to send your child to a college without any reason to think that it’s a good college for them. Yet here we take an even more important decision, such as our eternal reality and say “But in this case, it is a virtue.”

Believe it or not, the nones don’t want to check their brains at the door and they think they have to. They think that if you are going to be a Christian, it means you have to have a prudish attitude towards sexual matters just because the Bible says so. It means that you have to be someone who opposes science because the Bible says so. It means you are a closed-minded bigot because the Bible says you have to be right. Most of them already believe it makes perfect sense to remove the gender requirement for marriage and since many supports the transgender movement, they really don’t even place much stock in gender anyway. Why should they take you seriously?

And this is where the church has failed. We have not kept up our intellectual standards. We have in fact fallen into the individualism of our culture and we are doing evangelism in the 21st century as if we were living in the 1950’s where all you had to do was go and say what the Bible said and speak about the love of God and give your personal testimony and that was enough. It’s not. I’d say they treat the Bible about as seriously as a newspaper, but most of them would trust a newspaper more. Why should they believe the Bible? Haven’t you read the Wikipedia entry on the Bible?

When we forsook our intellectual convictions, we ultimately turned the church into a self-help therapy session. In fact, listen to a lot of Contemporary Christian music today. A lot of it is therapy. It’s meant to build us up and help us feel better about ourselves instead of inviting us into the grandeur of God. This is just as much our individualism. Now of course the Bible itself says radical things about who we are in Christ, but the focus is the in Christ. The focus is not us. If I want to feel better about myself, I can just go to a therapist today. I don’t need to go to church.

This is also why the Sabbath debate was so concerning to hear. The nones do not care about when we observe the Sabbath. They do not care about it any more than we care about finer points of Muslim doctrine. If we want to look at how salvation is found in Christ, the nones don’t care about that either. They don’t see any need for salvation because hey, what kind of God would judge you so much? Isn’t God love? Most people really have no idea what to do with these people because they have not studied the issues and have no idea how they can reach people on these kinds of issues.

Most of us also are not doing the work. I have written about how we have an escapist mentality with my main example being a woman in a small group who said “I’m saved and my children are saved so let’s just wait for Jesus to come.” Yes. That is entirely what the Great Commission is all about. Get yourself and those you love taken care of and who cares about the rest of the world? Note also the emphasis on getting saved. The emphasis is on God forgiving you. The emphasis is not on spreading the message of the Kingdom of God and proclaiming that Jesus is Lord.

We all realize that if we want to witness to people in another culture, we need to learn the language and customs and such of that culture so we can speak to them. What we have not realized is our neighbor is often that other culture. You have totally different worldviews residing here in America. How are you going to do that evangelism? You might actually have to learn what your neighbor believes and why they do. Believe it or not, you could also bear to learn what you believe and why you do. Have you ever thought about why you believe what you believe? If you haven’t taken the time to think about why you believe what you believe, why should anyone else take such time?

The nones are a sign that we have failed in our intellectual mission in the West. We have abandoned the rich heritage of the church before us and come up with a church that is all about me and does not provide anything the nones think that they need. They have better things to do on a Sunday morning and throughout the week than waste time in their eyes on religion. They are good people in their eyes and need nothing more. If the church wants to reach the nones, the church will have to learn to be the church. We must return to our intellectual heritage. This does not mean we forsake our ethical principles, but we don’t have them floating in air. We back them with why we believe this and make our stand.

The Kingdom of God requires it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

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

Book Plunge: Unanswered

What do I think of Jeremiah Johnston’s book published by Whitaker House? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Garth Brooks may be able to thank God for unanswered prayers, but unanswered questions are another matter. Unanswered questions can lead to people abandoning a Christian walk, such as what happened with Steve Jobs when he was just 13. In this book, Dr. Johnston sets out to answer some of the questions that are not normally answered. To be fair, he does answer some that are answered elsewhere often, such as the question of if Jesus rose from the dead and the last chapter is a chapter on the problem of evil, though it’s different from others in that it deals with the way Christians often think about evil instead of just “Why does a good God allow evil?”

Johnston’s book is engaging and easy to read. I have studied apologetics for years and there are many books that I frankly get bored during because I’ve read so much of it before, but not so with Johnston’s book. Johnston moves in between the intellectual and the personal in that he has not only a philosopher’s mind for what he does but he has the heart of a true pastor. This is also tied in with a thorough Biblical knowledge. Johnston not only wants to give the answers but he cares about the people to whom the answers will be given and this care is abundantly shown throughout the book.

Johnston starts his main arguments with having a faith centered on the resurrection. It’s a shame in our day and age that so many Christians know so much about the “end times” supposedly and how and when Jesus will return, but know next to nothing about the resurrection of Jesus. Plenty of people knew all about the Harbinger and about the blood moons and were watching those speakers on those topics, but how many of them are listening to Mike Licona, Gary Habermas, N.T. Wright, and William Lane Craig? How many of them even know who these people are? Christians get caught up in the sensational and ignore the essential.

Also, Johnston ends this section as all others with a rule of engagement on how to go and engage with those who disagree with the Christian faith. Each of these sections is a gift in itself.

The next chapter could be one of the most important ones Christians need to hear today and that’s the chapter on mental illness. As I have said before, mental illness is a serious problem in the church today and few know how to respond in love to silent sufferers. If we have someone come to the church in a wheelchair, few of us will shun such a person and hopefully no one would challenge him to a footrace. The tragedy with mental conditions is that you cannot see them for the most part. My wife and I both have Aspergers for instance and this is usually something we tell people because they can’t see it apparently. Some might guess, but it’s not as apparent as a wheelchair. How many people however fail to grasp how different the life is of someone with a mental condition and respond to them? Not only that, but we are often cruel to people who are suicidal, depressed, struggle with cutting, etc. by just telling them that they need to have more faith.

This has to stop.

If I keep going on that point, it will be a soapbox, so let’s get to the next one and that’s dealing with the paranormal, something not covered today. I did wonder sometimes where the line would be drawn in this one as I am a fantasy buff and I love worlds of mystery and magic. Still, the church is not doing a lot to address claims that are paranormal when in some ways, this is a gold mine that we could be jumping on. This tells us that people are open to a world that lies beyond simply matter. Why should the occult and New Age movement fill this vacuum? Why not let the church do that?

Next we come to Bible-ish Christianity. This is where Christians don’t really know their Bible as they should. They just have a simple knowledge and maybe not even from reading all the way through. I think this also happens too often when we get people to become Christians and immediately have them out doing evangelism before we seriously disciple them. (I could go a step more and say that I really don’t think we should even be focusing on conversions. Disciple someone first and make sure that they know what they’re getting into before they’re ready to say Jesus is Lord.) It would be wonderful if more of us could spend more time learning about what we claim to be the most important aspect of our lives. I’m not saying have no other interests. We all do. (We’ll pray for Dr. Johnston with his football interest) I’m saying that if you can devote time to your favorite TV show, you surely can to knowing Jesus.

Finally, Johnston has a section on suffering and a part he wants to hit at is how me-centric we are in our Christianity today. Everything is all about me and somehow we can know the will of God in our lives by looking at our experiences. It is a shame that too many people get their theology today from feelings and experiences instead of interacting with Scripture and with wise Christians past and present. Some might say that they are not trying to do theology, but everyone inevitably does theology. You just do good theology or you do bad theology, but there is no avoiding doing theology.

In conclusion, this is the kind of book that we need today. If I was a youth pastor at a church, I would be arranging a book study on this book right now! Young Christians will be better served studying this than by having endless pizza parties. Jeremiah Johnston has given the church a gift in this and we need to accept it and put it to use.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 10/31/2015: Mark Hunnemann

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

Halloween is upon us. It’s the time where we think about all those scary things that go bump in the night and sit around campfires and tell ghost stories and try our hardest to scare each other. Some people really do get scared on Halloween and there are many concerns about how Christians as well should celebrate the holiday or even if they should celebrate it at all. Each year, I try to have someone come on who is familiar with the occult to talk about these kinds of things usually due to their experience in such matters. A few years ago I was advised to never study it for myself and I have followed that. Therefore, I decided to have my friend Mark Hunnemann come on who wrote Seeing Ghosts Through God’s Eyes. So who is he?

MarkHunnemann

In his own words:

I graduated in 1979 from ASU (Appalachian St U) with a BA in Philosophy…minor in religion. Went directly to graduate school or seminary at Covenant Theological Seminary in St Louis as well as Erskine, where I graduated…..3 year Masters of Divinity Degree. I debated on whether to get PhD in Philosophy and teach but felt the Lord calling me to the pastoral ministry. I was ordained in 1985 in the ARP (Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church) and was an assistant pastor for 4 years in my hometown of Greensboro, NC. I then started a church plant and was pastor for 10 years. I now focus on writing and educating people re the explosive growth of the occult worldview, which has now displaced secularism as the main threat of Christianity. I have also worked with people who are oppressed because their homes are demonically infested.

We’ll be talking about his book and famous ghost stories and what evidence there is that anything unusual is going on. What about in a day and age where there’s rampant skepticism of anything demonic? Don’t we live in America and in the 21st century and in the modern scientific age? What are people today to do about demons? On the other hand, are there not some people on the opposite end who do think that nearly everything that they see around them is demonic? I can’t help but think of a video Allie and I watched recently from the Prophecy Club that we just ended up laughing at, particularly when the guy who was an ex-satanist started saying that Pokemon was a plot to lure our kids into satanism. How do we find the fine middle line to avoid complete hysteria and complete ignorance? After all, Lewis told us years ago that a demon would be equally pleased with a magician as he would a materialist. We’ll also talk about some of those ghost shows that you see on TV and what we can learn from them or rather, not learn from them.

I hope you’ll be tuning in this Saturday to hear Mark, and Happy Halloween!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 10/24/2015: David Wilkie

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

Art. We see it in the world all around us. While we might think it only exists in drawings and paintings, any time we sit down to watch TV, in some way, we are seeing art. Even the way a news reporter dresses and the way their show is lined out is meant to make a statement. The commercials that will take place are often artistic in some sense. Music is all around us and many of us travel with our devices listening to music that we hear and as much as cars have advanced, though sadly we did not get the flying cars that we were told we would get, it is quite likely music will be a part of them for some time.

What impact can a Christian have when it comes to art? Many times in the apologetics world, we have focused on the world of the head. Bring forward a good argument and that’s enough. For some people, it could be, but many times it’s not just the message that reaches people, but it’s the medium that reaches them as well and art is a fantastic medium. Why not have on the show someone who brings together the world of art and the world of Christianity? This week, I have decided to do that by having David Wilkie come on. If you don’t know him, he’s the author of the popular comic strip Coffee With Jesus.

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So who is he? According to his bio:

Born in Germany of a Californian Army father and a New York Italian mother, Dave Wilkie considers himself a Transcontinental American, though he’s still trying to find a home state.
From his earliest days, Dave was fascinated with the written word as well as the audio and visual arts. He enjoyed most the ability of all of these mediums to make people laugh and think. Compiling audio montages became a hobby early on.

Dave has held numerous and varied positions in his career, a career that started in journalism, if you count delivering The Washington Post as a 6th grader a job in journalism.
Dave has been an advertising copywriter, creative director, producer, musician, on-air talent, clergyman, fax repairman and artist, sometimes all at once. His favorite role is that of Grounds Maintenance Foreman for Radio Free Babylon, the organization he founded with his wife, Katie, in 2000. “You can’t edit a mowed and manicured lawn,” he says.
Dave and his family reside in Florida, with Roman, their Australian shepherd.

This Saturday then, we’ll be talking about art and apologetics. How can a Christian be a witness for Christ? Is it possible to use artwork in order to make an impact for the Kingdom? How should Christians best engage with the media that is around them and use it for the glory of God? What kind of skills does one need to get in the world of art in order to best use this medium for the Gospel?

Tune in next time to the Deeper Waters Podcast!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Seeing Ghosts Through God’s Eyes?

What do I think about Mark Hunnemann’s book on ghosts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Mark Hunnemann is a friend of mine and I respect his knowledge and experience. I was eager to read his book on ghosts because this is just an interesting area of discussion. I don’t really watch ghost hunter shows or anything like that. I have seen a couple of episodes but frankly, it just looked stupid. When I was on my honeymoon with my wife, we went to a museum together at the beach and we were told there was a ghost walk going on where we’d hear stories about ghosts at Ocean Isle Beach. We thought we’d see what it was like since it was free. It started with a picture that was supposed to show ghosts through a window which I told my wife Allie that it looked to me like it just needed more Windex. Things kind of went downhill from there and to this day we can make jokes about the “Kindred spirit of the mailbox.”

I opened up Mark’s book then wanting to get a fuller look at ghosts from a biblical perspective. Mark comes from an area that is quite easily to identify as extremely Calvinist with a strong presuppositionalism. If you do not share this viewpoint, which I do not, then this can be problematic. If his Calvinism and his interpretation of Scripture holds, then his conclusion I think follows well, but while I am skeptical of ghosts, though I do try to remain open, there are some problems that I was facing as I went through that I did not think were being answered and this could be due to a lack of real data on the topic.

I would have liked to have seen more interaction with that data. For instance, I was not too familiar with EMV technology when I started the book and what its impact is supposed to be on studies of ghosts. I ended the book not familiar with EMV technology and what its impact is supposed to be on studies of ghosts. This kind of material was not dealt with. Of course it could be the data gathered from these means is bogus. It could be that these are faked accounts. I am not a specialist so I cannot say. The point is that it needs to be dealt with.

I also was left wondering what the view of the afterdeath was. For instance, it’s my belief that Heaven and Hell do not refer to particular places. They refer instead to states of relation between God and man. You could see my view as akin to Lewis’s in The Great Divorce. Thus, a person who dies I think could still be here, though I would not call them someone who appears as a ghost. They have to be somewhere after all. Does that mean they are wandering in a world apart from God? Not at all. That’s impossible. God is omnipresent and I think those on the other side to use a better term see the glory that is already there that we miss out on. Non-Christians meanwhile live in shame and anger knowing they are surrounded by the presence of one they’ve hated so much.

I could also agree with the writer that many of these are demonic beings coming in another form. I have no problem with that and while I do think it’s good to be skeptical of claims, one does not need to be unreasonably skeptical, but yet I couldn’t help but wonder if demons explain all stories. What also of more innocent stories such as the accounts of people who feel the presence of a loved one in their room suddenly for a brief moment and then the phone rings to tell them that that loved one died?

To get back to theory of people being here in some sense though dead, could that be behind some ghosts? Could they be in fact people who have died apart from Christ and are living lives of agony as restless wanderers at times? I am open. Could I know that? No. Could I establish it? No. Do I have any strong cases? No. I am just open. While we are told that ghosts are supposed to represent all of the public around us, I do not think we can really establish that. Too much of ghost hunting seems to be speculation built on speculation built on speculation. How could anyone know some of these things? One could have an interesting theory and maybe interesting evidence for it, but I hesitate to call it knowledge.

Mark no doubt writes with a knowledge and love of God and many of his statements on grace and forgiveness are beautiful, but being one who does not share the viewpoint of Calvinism or the presuppositional approach, I found myself just wondering about the other data. You can say all you want that the position of ghosts does contradict the Word of God. I would have no problem with that, but that does not mean that it does not need to be explained. One could argue from a more YEC perspective that evolution contradicts the Word of God. (I do not share this position but I am speaking on a hypothetical) Even if that is so, one still needs to explain the data and not just show that it contradicts Scripture. This is part of having a fully cohesive worldview to explain all the data.

On that note, the importance of worldview thinking I was pleased to see. Not enough people do think about the worldviews that they hold and frankly, I think many of the problems we see in the church could be corrected if we just had good theology. Perhaps indeed much of our speculation with ghosts and matters like that would be less prevalent if we just had good theology. I am concerned when our churches seem to put a fascination into us of the dark side when we don’t know enough about our own side. (And this is done even by having regular events that “expose” satanism or seeing satanism involved in everything.)

If there is another edition put out of this book, I would like to see more interaction with the data that disagrees and what’s wrong or inconsistent about it in itself. Also, while I understand the writer writes from a Calvinistic viewpoint, it does come out too strong and those who do not share that viewpoint will find it hard to relate to or follow the arguments or find themselves persuaded. The material on grace and forgiveness is good and encouraging, but the argumentation and data need to be improved.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Mark’s book is available for purchase here.