Book Plunge: Why Christians Are Wrong About Jesus

How shall we begin this one? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Rather than continue going through the 101 reasons book, we’ll go through this one seeing as it seems a bit meatier. As I started reading through, I was pleased to see the topic seemed to be taken seriously. It’s sad that I was relieved that nothing was said about Jesus existing at the start of the work. Too many atheists out there think that is some hot debate in the academic world. (Spoiler alert. It isn’t.)

The book is by a guy named John Campbell who I think says he is a lawyer, which got me thinking this could probably be a bit more rigorous. In some ways, it is. In others, I do find myself being disappointed again.

Today, we’re just going to look at the introduction. First, one noteworthy point is that he says Christians have their view of Jesus too colored by Paul. In some ways, there can be a sense in which we ignore the Gospels and go to the epistles where we think the doctrine is. However, the main point to establish is that Campbell says never met Jesus or heard His teachings.

To begin with, this is just an argument from silence. We don’t have any record of Paul encountering Jesus, to be sure, but that is a far cry from saying it never happened. Arguments from silence like this are just weak. Not only that, we have Paul’s work in Galatians that no one disputes that says that he met with the disciples for a prolonged period and as has been said, we can be sure that they weren’t talking about the weather. Paul would have known the teachings of Jesus.

Not only that, Clement of Rome was the disciple of Peter and Polycarp that of John. Both of them praised Paul. Hard to think they would praise someone who got the teachings of Jesus that their main mentors had taught them wrong.

Of course, there is a statement against miracles.

This is the primary reason historians reject miracle claims–miracles have no demonstrable analogy in the present. They don’t reflect the way we currently understand the world to work. They violate natural laws for which scientists have never demonstrated a violation. Because historians work in probabilities, the principle of analogy requires that miracle claims be assigned very low probabilities.

To begin with, this book came out this year. Keener’s work has been out for some time on miracles and yet, there is no interaction with either of his books on the topic. Second, one can say they don’t reflect the way we understand the world to work. I shall blow Campbell’s mind and say they don’t reflect the way ancient people knew the world to work either. They recognized miracles as exceptions for a reason.

Finally, it is question-begging to say we have never observed a violation of natural laws. If anyone does say they have seen a miracle, their testimony is discounted. Why? We know that’s not how the world works. How do we know that? Because it’s never been seen. One would think that Hume would be evoked so at least he wasn’t. It’s not a shock that Earman’s work on Hume was not referenced either.

We are also told Jesus did not write anything down. Indeed! Most great teachers didn’t as Sandy and Walton show in The Lost World of Scripture. Then we are told that the writings in the Gospels are anonymous, despite the church fathers practically agreeing universally on who wrote them. As to why they are anonymous, E.P. Sanders wrote that

The authors probably wanted to eliminate interest in who wrote the story and to focus the reader on the subject. More important, the claim of an anonymous history was higher than that of a named work. In the ancient world an anonymous book, rather like an encyclopedia article today, implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability. It would have reduced the impact of the Gospel of Matthew had the author written ‘this is my version’ instead of ‘this is what Jesus said and did.’  – The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders page 66.

He also says the Gospels contain fiction since even Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, and Bill Craig all say the resurrection of the saints didn’t happen in Matthew 27. That doesn’t mean first that those people are interpreting it as if it was a fictional account made up. They all say there is a reason for it being there. However, even more concerning is that Gary Habermas has never said it’s a fiction at all. I even emailed him to ask him if he had ever said that and received a reply of no, he had never said the resurrection of the saints is a fiction.

He does say that after Jesus’s crucifixion, Jesus’s brother James took up the movement. There is no interaction with N.T. Wright pointing out that James was never said to be the Messiah, which would be an easy claim to make if one Messiah figure falls. Perhaps that is addressed later, but here, it is not. He does go further though and say that James established a movement called the Nazarites, or the Way, or the Ebionites. No evidence is given for any of this.

He says Mark presents Jesus as entirely human. No effort to interact with the scholarship that disagrees. After all, there are plenty of ways for Jesus to show His deity besides getting up on a mountain and saying “Hi, everyone! I’m Jesus, but you may also know me as God!”

He also says Jesus’s family being shocked at what He was doing doesn’t make sense in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke since they mention a virgin birth (Which I do affirm), but he gives no reason for this. Was the family to have perfect theology and know entirely the plan of the Messiah from the get-go? The oldest son anyway was to provide for the family and Jesus wasn’t doing that. He also wasn’t acting the way the Messiah was supposed to act.

He does say that we can be sure Jesus taught the Kingdom of God since it would be embarrassing to put it in since that Kingdom didn’t come. As an orthodox Preterist, I contend that that Kingdom did come. Jesus is king right now. We will see if this is dealt with any more when we get deeper into the book.

Again, this book is better than most, but considering the most, that might not be saying a lot. We shall see more as we go on through and see how it holds up in the end.

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

Do We Remember?

Do we remember 9/11? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I normally write these blogs now a day ahead of time. That’s just the nature of the beast with working a job on campus and with having classes as well. Sunday night, I’m writing and when I schedule the blog, I see that the next day is 9/11. I’ve already written a blog. I don’t want to change it.

That kind of saddened me. I wonder if it’s natural with the passage of time. It could be like remembering the anniversary of the death of a loved one. It gets harder and harder to deal with. I remember when the day came that would have been my 11th anniversary, I was dreading how I would handle it. Nowadays, it doesn’t even register a lot of times.

At the same time, there is an awkwardness on campus around here. I know many students here that have no memory of 9/11. Some of them were too young when it happened. Some of them weren’t even born when it happened. These people have never lived in a world where the Twin Towers were standing. Naturally, I don’t fault them for it, but I realize these are different times.

My parents grew up in the generation that saw Kennedy assassinated. I can’t relate to that at all. I don’t know if they still remember that every time when that day comes around. Maybe not.

When the Challenger exploded, I was five years old. I really don’t remember much about that experience. There’s no doubt for me that politically, 9/11 was the defining moment of my generation. Yes. I can still remember where I was when I first heard the news. Nothing else really comes close.

I do know I lost sight for a time and thus am writing this blog late. That again leaves me wondering if that means the impact of it is lessening. In some cases, it has to. How would it be if the impact of negative events in our lives never lessened? I tell people that my divorce still hurts every day, but it sure is a relief it doesn’t hurt as much as it did then.

We cannot expect any emotion to last forever, which is a good thing, even for a good emotion. Lewis once wrote that it’s a good thing the feeling of falling in love doesn’t last or else we would never be able to function in our lives. Many people have an ecstasy come over them when they come to Christ, but that also doesn’t last or else we would never learn how to walk through struggle. People could likely become Christians only because they want good feels.

Despite that, we can remember the lessons regardless. I can lose a loved one and not feel the pain and still remember the good times and the lessons that I learned from them. I no longer have the pain from scoliosis surgery, but I sure can remember the times that I couldn’t walk and how I shouldn’t take those for granted. The problem is, learning lessons does require more effort. It takes more to work on those and practice them. It takes virtue.

Let’s hope this generation coming up learns that, or else we could repeat history again.

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

Thoughts On Vietnamese Worship

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

For my missions class, I am allowed to do the class with a mentor and my pastor has agreed to be my mentor seeing as he has a PhD in Missiology. One assignment he has given me is to visit different churches and see how they do worship services. Fortunately, New Orleans is a city that is highly diverse so that makes this simple. Yesterday, I decided to go to a Vietnamese Church.

Keep in mind with each of these when I write about them that I am only talking about one church, but I am talking about how I experienced that. I am not saying that all the churches are like this. Unfortunately, needing to visit several different churches, some hasty generalization is likely to be inevitable.

I pulled into the parking lot surprised in some ways to see so many cars there. It’s interesting knowing that there are enough Vietnamese people that are Southern Baptist in the area. (That is the denomination of the church I visited) Though the service had started, I was greeted at the door by someone who spoke English. I do not know if this is how everyone is greeted or if I was spoken to in English because I am clearly white.

The layout of the church was traditional and I was indicated a spot on the pew where I could sit and given a bulletin with a little explanation of where we were in the service. I found some of it was in English and some of it was in Vietnamese. English parts of the bulletin included the pastors name and the names of the hymns that were sung, even though those hymns were sung in Vietnamese.

The Scripture verses were also put up in Vietnamese on a screen above the pastor. I could not tell what the verses were just by looking, but I did gather an idea of what the verses were since the references were pretty easy to make out. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the sermon which I could not understand a word of.

The pastor I gathered was a humorous fellow as several times in the sermon, he would say something and the audience would laugh. At some points, I noticed some people would turn to each other and say something about what was said. I wondered if this might be something that happens more in these services than in your typical Western American services.

I noticed most people seemed to dress nicely for the event, though there was one girl I saw wearing a T-shirt. I don’t remember any children making any noise during the service. Some people wanted to speak to me after the service. Some didn’t.

It’s definitely unique to be the minority ethnically in a location. I definitely was different from everyone else, but that’s okay. What’s really important is that these are still my brothers and sisters in Christ. I suspect one day Babel will be undone entirely and we will all speak one language together before the throne of God. I have no speculation on how or what that might be just in case you’re wondering.

Next Monday, I plan to report on a different church that I visit.

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

 

Is The Parable of the Workers Socialist

Are we being taught economic theory in this? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes, people present the parable of the workers in the field in Matthew 20 as if Jesus is espousing socialism. After all, everyone gets paid the same. Right? There’s no differentiation in wages. I was reading that recently and started looking at it and yes, I have heard other people bring out these arguments, but I figured I needed to as well.

First, let’s look at the parable.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

At the start, for one thing, this parable is not meant to teach business practices or economics. Seriously, if any business worker did this, he would find himself out of business quickly. After all, if I knew this guy did this, I would wait until the last hour to get hired, put in an hour’s work, get a day’s pay, and I would have spent the day prior and after just doing what I want. Word would get out.

However, that being said, the parable doesn’t even have a socialist background in any way. We can say the workers all got paid the same. No one was greater and no one was lesser in pay. Right. But why? The owner tells us.

“Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?”

So in this, the owner owns the money himself. If he wants to pay the last workers that much, he can do that. Not only that, if anything, the ones who worked all day sound like the socialists in the parable with them saying, “We worked harder. We are owed more money.”

I don’t support minimum wage laws. No one is owed a job by anyone. What you are owed is what you agree to work for, in this case, a denarius. The people in this story think they are owed more than they agreed to. They think they have the right to tell the landowner what to do with his money.

They don’t. He tells them it is his money. He can spend it how he sees fit. If he wants to give to the last workers a denarius, he can do that because it is his money. Now if he did pay the workers who worked all day less than a denarius, they could have gone to the courts with him breaking a contract, but he didn’t. There was no basis for such a charge.

Ultimately, the point of the parable is not to teach economics. It’s to teach about grace in the Kingdom of God. Still, from an economic perspective, this is not a socialist story. It is a capitalist one.

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

Reading Disagreeing Material

Do you have guarded reading? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I encounter internet atheists, I usually ask them the same question. When was the last time you read an academic work on the topic that disagrees with you? The overwhelming majority of the time, I get nothing back. I find this fascinating since these people claim to be champions of reason and evidence, but are often only interested in seeing it from their perspective.

Yes. Sadly, too many Christians who argue do the same thing. Still, I do notice that it seems we do it less. I can’t claim to have data for this, but when I see Christians engage with atheists, many of them know the atheist arguments and can in many cases articulate them better.

I’m on pages for debate between Christians and Mormons. What do I notice? Christians seem a lot more familiar with Mormon arguments than the other way around. The same happens with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Most Jehovah’s Witnesses I see nowadays don’t even get the Trinity described right, confusing it with modalism, let alone know how to argue against it.

For Muslims, I still remember a day several years ago when I was engaging with a Muslim online and in it I asked him “Have you ever read the New Testament?” He replied, “No. Have you ever read the Qur’an?” I am sure he expected a negative back, but unfortunately for him, he didn’t get it. I had indeed read it. Now, I have read it twice.

When Mormons come to visit me, I can assure them I have read all of their Scriptures and a number of other pro-Mormon writings. When a new Bart Ehrman book comes out, I’m one of the first to get it. I had this last one so quickly that when it came out, some of my professors on campus asked me what I thought of it.

When I read Christian writings arguing for their positions against their opponents, I find they constantly reference primary sources they disagree with. I have written long ago that sadly, atheist writers often don’t do this. Reading through them, I can tell. When you meet atheists espousing Jesus mythicism or saying “If God created everything, who created God?” and treating it like that refutes the cosmological argument, it’s clear that they don’t know the material.

As a Christian, if you do this, the advantage you have is that first off, you know the material that you are going up against. No one can know it exhaustively, but you know it enough to be familiar. A general rule of thumb is that before you argue against a position, you ought to be able to theoretically argue persuasively FOR that position. If you can’t make that case without making it a total joke, you probably don’t know the position at all.

This also increases your humility. Doing this is a way of saying “I could be wrong and I want to know.” If you are of the mindset that you don’t have to read the other side because you already know they’re bunk, odds are the only person being fooled is you.

Third, as a Christian, this can show you flaws in your own positions that you hold. Sometimes, you might change your mind. Other times, you can see a weakness and refine your position. Sometimes, you might find something you agree with in the writing. I can say I have learned from reading the material that I disagree with.

There can be something we can learn from so many other positions. I have said before that Richard Dawkins when writing about theism or philosophy or anything outside of his area has no clue and is just a train wreck. When he writes about science, what you would consider the most ordinary of all is made wondrous and alive and I could read him all day. The best work Dawkins does for science is not when he argues against Christianity. He does great damage to science then. The best work he does is when he just writes about science as science. He doesn’t tie his worldview into it. He just describes it. If he did this more often, he would encourage more people of all worldviews to go into science and study it.

Definitely if you’re an apologist, read what you disagree with. I’m always going through at least one book I disagree with on Kindle. I started a new one just recently, but before that, I had returned to some Islamic hadiths. The learning is always beneficial.

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

 

What Do Real Christians Do?

Are you doing what is sufficient? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in one side of Christianity and think that’s where the real Christians are. I recently had to read a book on missions for a class and I remember at one point, one contributor (Each chapter written by another person) was talking about the people who go on missions and saying “These are the people who are really living out the gospel!”

So, everyone who has not been on a mission at all, you are not living out the gospel apparently.

Now I am going through one on evangelism and when talking about evangelism, well this is what real Christians have been doing for centuries.

So if you struggle with doing evangelism, are you not a real Christian?

I could easily list other examples. Why, if you’re a real Christian, you will be speaking in tongues! If you are a real Christian, you’re fasting! If you’re a real Christian, you pay that tithe! If you’re a real Christian, this is how much you study the Bible every day! If you’re a real Christian, you can pray for this long every day!

Also, yes, this includes my own field. It can be tempting for someone like me to say “Real Christians devote themselves to studying apologetics.” I’m sure at some points in my life I have thought that, but the thing is, I know plenty of real Christians who don’t. Am I about to say my own mother isn’t a real Christian, for example? What about my Dad or my sister or her husband?

Speaking for me, for missions, I wouldn’t mind doing one someday, but when I was staying with a friend in Florida for a wedding once, I had to make arrangements based on my diet beforehand. Being on the spectrum, I’m awfully finicky. Before I go somewhere, I want to make sure I can handle it on the spectrum.

Evangelism?

Look. I’m an exception in that I will happily stand before a crowd to do public speaking. I thrive on that. One of the great joys of the internet is that I can better communicate with people this way and share Christian truth with them. I have met more and more people I have been able to help on the internet. Get me out talking to total strangers though and I am completely quiet for the most part.

The problem with when we say that this is what real Christians do or serious Christians do, we marginalize those who don’t and can lead them to question if they are a real Christian. I am not saying that these things are necessarily bad things. I don’t agree with everything I have listed on the claims, but the mindset is pretty much always the same.

So what do real Christians do?

Well, John said we must walk as Jesus walked. That seems sufficient enough. I think I could say it this way also. We should at least be striving to do that. None of us will be perfect, but we will try.

So if you want to know if you’re a real Christian, what I would encourage you to ask yourself is this question. Am I living more like Jesus every day? Am I showing love to God and to my neighbor more? This doesn’t mean an emotional response, but how you live. Is your life lining up?

If so, then yes, you are being a real Christian. Now could you want to go on a mission? Fine. Go ahead. Do you want to go out and do evangelism with people? Fine. Go ahead. Can you pray for an hour? Can you study the Bible this much? Can you give away this much to the church? Fine. Do what you can.

But make all of those secondary to walking like Jesus.

As Augustine said, “Love God, and live as you please.”

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

Is This Quote Marxist?

Does the Bible line up with Marxism? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So there’s this collection of memes going around the internet where you’re supposed to play a game and decide if the quote comes from Marx or the Bible. Naturally, there’s no citation given. I can understand that during the “game”, but one would hope that at the end, all the references would be given.

Alas, such is not the case.

So let’s go through these quotes which all turn out to be from the Bible.

No reference of course, but yes. Don’t rob the poor. That’s not only Christian, that’s capitalist. Capitalism is the free exchange of goods without force, theft, or fraud. If any system robs the poor, it’s Marxism. Economic controls make it harder for the poor to earn and have income in the long term and taxation doesn’t hurt the rich nearly as much as it does the poor.

Quote #2:

This is Proverbs 22:16 and again, what’s the problem? Proverbs give general principles and this is one of them. God has a special heart for the poor in Scripture and so mistreatment of the poor is not allowed. Giving to the rich would be a way of trying to buy the favor of a rich man and get his honor. Now if you had a friend who was rich, this doesn’t mean you can’t buy him a gift of some sort, but it would mean you should be giving to the poor too.

By the way, conservatives typically do give more to charity, as is shown in Arthur Brooks’s The Conservative Heart. There’s less emphasis to give to the poor if you just think the government will do it for you.

#3:

This is from Proverbs 29:7. The righteous care for the poor. The wicked doesn’t. It would be a mistake to read the Constitution into this as it was not written with an American Republic in mind, but again, what’s the problem here? We should care about the poor. Most capitalists would agree. We’d even say that’s why we’re capitalists. The best way to help the poor is to enable them to rise up out of poverty. Thomas Sowell has repeatedly stated that few people stay in the same income bracket their whole lives. Those at one point in the bottom 20% will not always be there.

#4

This is found in James and is a way of warning against trying to buy the favor of the rich. Big shock. Rich people can be evil. For that matter, so can poor people, but rich people often have greater means to do evil.

This is why it’s important to realize that before Adam Smith ever wrote a book on capitalism, he wrote one on ethics. Capitalism is not meant to be done apart from ethics.

This is a general principle and yes, the rich do tend to have power over the poor and if you borrow money from someone, you are their servant to an extent.

How this is supposed to be something Marxist is not explained.

I am quite sure the person who shared this has not sold their computer and given it to the needy yet. At any rate, this was said to one person in particular, the rich young ruler, since money was his idol. After all, if everyone did this, eventually, we would have new needy and new rich people. It would just be a reversal.

This is also true. If you desire to be rich above all else, that is a path of destruction. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have money in itself and wanting to be financially secure, but if you blur ethical lines to do that, you have a problem. Rich people with good hearts can do a whole lot of good. Rich people with wicked hearts can do a whole lot of bad, such as someone like, I don’t know, Engels, regularly giving of his wealth that he had to finance someone named Marx. His philosophy has been one of the most destructive of all.

It is. It is not the root of all evil, but much evil is done because of the love of money. This can even include if you’re the government and think you need to take away money from other people and give it to others. If I empty out your bank account in theft and give all the money to the poor, I have used the money for something good, but I have done an evil because it was not my money to use in that way. Somehow though, if the government does that, it’s okay.

This is Hebrews 13:5 which also says to be content with what you have. Again, what is the situation here? As a capitalist, I agree with this.

This is from Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, which is giving a reversal. In the day of Jesus, it would have been thought that the rich had the blessings of God, since, well, they were rich. Jesus says it is otherwise.

Ultimately, the problem with all of these is the assumption that if you are someone who cares for the poor and doesn’t glamourize wealth, you should be a Marxist. It doesn’t work that way. Too many leftists think that if you don’t agree with them on the ways to help the poor, then you don’t care about helping the poor. If I care about treating your hiccups and my suggestion is to get an axe and cut off your head, it would be silly to say if you disagree that you don’t care about solving the problem. You just don’t think that’s the most efficient way. (Although to be fair, if I did do that, you certainly would no longer have hiccups!)

Capitalists are in favor of helping the poor. We just don’t think the government is the way to do it. That doesn’t mean we oppose all government safety nets, but we much more support private individuals giving freely of themselves to help those in need. If all Marxism meant was caring for the poor, no one would really object. It is how they think we should care for the poor that is a real issue here.

I really think most people should just read at least Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in one Lesson. 

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

 

Gaming and Community

Do these two go together? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am listening on Audible to Reality is Broken. It’s a book about the importance of gaming in our world and how gaming can help fix problems outside of the game. Over the weekend, I am listening to the book and I hear two statements that I think go together and are worth writing about.

The first is one that I’ve thought for a long time. Kids born after 1980 are generally more miserable than kids that were born before. Why? Because there was an emphasis on the self-esteem movement and self-fulfillment. Look within yourself to find your value and goodness.

That movement failed. Today, one of the supposedly most important things you can learn is to not hurt someone’s feelings. It’s as if this is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person. It’s not. I am not saying to be needlessly cruel, of course, but too often we are walking on eggshells.

The second lesson is that those who are kind to others in gaming worlds are more prone to be kind to others in real life, even total strangers. Why should this not be? Being kind to a stranger in a virtual world can easily equate to being kind to strangers outside since after all, those people in the virtual world are strangers.

Many readers know I play Final Fantasy XIV. At one time, I remember being a character who was a miner trying to get some goodies from rocks in the field when another player comes by. He sees my equipment and says “You need something better. Wait here.” I do and a few minutes later, he returns with equipment he has bought or acquired through some other means (Though most likely bought) and just gives it to me. I couldn’t even tell you their name, but I remember it.

Another time, I had finished a dungeon raid with some other players and one of them stays after and works to tell us strategies that we could do to improve our gameplay. Again, I don’t remember who it is. I can’t even tell you what the strategies were. I can tell you that kindness was shown.

How do these two work together? Because if you try to look inside yourself constantly to find joy, you will be miserable. If you seek to do what you can to help others, you will often find greater joy. It’s almost as if that guy was right several centuries ago who said “It is better to give than to receive.”

“Yes, but if you’re going to say gaming kindness leads to real-world kindness, does the same apply to violence?” I don’t think so because first off, the literature I have read leads me to conclude that doesn’t happen. The second is because we all have within ourselves somewhere still a moral revulsion to certain actions. That can be overridden by many, but not all will do that.

We don’t come with a moral revulsion to helping others, though some of us do convince ourselves of one. If we can teach ourselves that that is good virtually, we will be more prone to doing that non-virtually. Not only that, but even virtually, if we are playing with real people, we are still helping strangers.

The self-esteem movement failed because it did the exact opposite of what we are to do. It told us to look within, but our own selves are a fragile foundation for joy. What does bring joy is community and knowing we have brought other people joy. So what about the idea though that many of us who are gamers are loners?

Also not really true. If anything, this is a societal problem. I live on a campus and I know that many of us just come home and stay in our own places and don’t really visit neighbors too much. Like many people though, if I meet a fellow gamer, we can connect instantly in talking about games like Zelda or Final Fantasy. Can that happen in many other fields? Of course, but there’s a special delight for us still when we meet someone with the same interests and can bond, especially helpful for someone on the spectrum.

If you have kids today, don’t raise them on self-esteem nonsense. It doesn’t work. Raise them to love their neighbor as themselves. That will give them true joy.

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

Book Plunge: 101 Reasons for Non-Belief 11-20

Have we come across a valid reason yet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have said I’m not going to go over every reason likely. I might touch here and there. For the 11th, the author is saying there are too many positions on religion so it’s too confusing. With all this, it’s impossible to make the right decision and be informed in doing so.

So naturally, the right decision is to say everyone else is wrong.

Sounds legit.

12 is that you can be a good person without God. This is again, something no one is arguing against. It’s also not the claim that morality is rooted in one religion, but that morality is rooted in one God. That God has shown Himself in general revelation so that all know about goodness.

14 has a section worth quoting.

Any text written or dictated by a Cosmic Über-entity should be unambiguous, understandable in any language, and without peer. In 2021, I adopted the short phrase, Cosmic Über-Entity as my replacement for God or deity. Any Entity that could create or is responsible for the four constants would have zero need for mere humans to worship it. The concept is absurd.

Which pretty much seems to mean God will do your thinking for you. These are the same people who want to live by their own freedom and reason. If something is absurd, it is the concept that the author has expressed in this section.

16 tells us that religion preys on people who are poor, uneducated, sick, etc. Pretty much, the dregs of society. Of course, this can apply to anything else out there. There are people of every social status and intellectual status in most every movement.

19 has this saying in it.

Outside of terrorism there is less murder and other crimes in non-Christian countries.

Outside of terrorism. Well, that’s nice to know. There’s also the claim that America is the mass-murder capital of the world. None of this is backed, but the author blames this on American evangelicalism and proof that God is not the source of our morality.

First off, none of this is cited. I am not saying it is all wrong, but some citation needs to be made for a claim like this. Second, the author needs to show that there is a correlation here. The reason that we have this problem is because of American Evangelicalism. Color me skeptical that evangelicalism really has much impact today on our culture. If anything, it is the lack of Christianity in our culture that I contend leads to our moral difficulties.

Finally, there’s a swipe at Calvinism and other beliefs where the victim is blamed. I do agree that this does work though for positions like the prosperity gospel and for The Secret. Either way, none of this really counts as a reason for non-belief. So far, our author is still not making any valid arguments whatsoever. I can’t say that I have been surprised by any of this.

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

 

Book Plunge: Passport to Heaven

What do I think of Micah Wilder’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I like the Wilders. I got to know them when I read Lynn Wilder’s book Unveiling Grace and I ended up feeling like I knew her family well at the end of the book. It is an excellent look at what goes on in the Mormon Church and it all started with her son Micah going on his mission trip and becoming a Christian when he was challenged to just read the New Testament like a child. Now, Micah has released his story. Normally, one refers to writers by their last name, but since this concerns a family, I will be calling him Micah.

Micah is certainly an amusing writer to read at times. Consider one part where he notices the walls closing in on him of Christianity and having to leave behind Mormonism. At that point, we get the description that goes as follows:

My head was pounding and my throat was so dry that my pitiful wails came out sounding like the distant honks of a lonely Canadian goose.

That’s a word picture for you.

Why is this so difficult? Isn’t it just changing a religion? Don’t Christians change denominations all the time? As Micah says

The mere thought of the high cost I had to pay frightened me and made me feel guilty. After all, every facet of my life was so deeply entrenched in my religious identity: my family, friends, school, career path, relationships, reputation, hopes, dreams, earthly aspirations, culture, respect, and more. I couldn’t even fathom a life outside of that which I knew. Was I willing to walk away from everything the world had to offer?

Mormonism essentially becomes someone’s life and society. The closest parallel I could think of to this book was reading Nabeel Qureshi’s Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus and how after he became a Christian, wished God would kill him then so he wouldn’t have to tell his parents and disgrace them. There are a lot of similarities though between Islam and Mormonism, so this isn’t too much of a shock.

HIs story starts with him going on his mission and he has been assigned to Mexico, but then while playing a sport in the training facility, an injury occurs out of nowhere. Micah’s writing at this point when the doctor comes to him to tell him what it is is quite amusing.

“Hmmm…” the trainer said. “It sounds like you might have a broken rib.” The look on his face betrayed him, however. We both knew I was a dead man. There was no way I had broken a rib; I hadn’t had any physical contact with anyone. Whatever had happened came out of thin air, as if God Himself had poked me in the back with His almighty finger.

And

He turned toward me (while conveniently avoiding eye contact) and proceeded to serve up my death sentence rather coldly: “It’s a primary spontaneous pneumothorax.”

concluding with

Dear Lord no! I thought to myself. I’m going to die! I had had no idea what his prognosis meant, but it sure sounded hopeless. As the doctor was nonchalantly exiting the room, he glanced over at me and, in a rather routine style, declared, “Oh. Your lung collapsed.” “Oh?” I said sheepishly. His heart may have been in the right place, but his bedside manner needed a little polishing.

To all ladies reading this, think “Man-cold.” Whatever sickness or injury a man has, it’s a death sentence. Unfortunately, Micah got stuck with Dr. House delivering the news. What are you going to do?

Anyway, because of this, he is sent instead to Florida. (Suffering missionary, eh?) As he describes his journey as a zealous Mormon, one statement he made stood out to me. We need to do better.

Unfortunately, the benevolence demonstrated by these few godly individuals was not commonplace in my experiences as a missionary. In the thousands upon thousands of people I had engaged with, I could count— perhaps only on one hand— the number of Christians who not only displayed to me a genuine Christlike love, but also proclaimed the gospel as revealed in God’s Word.

Too many might turn Mormons away because they don’t know how to answer them. That itself shows we need to do better. Most of our Christians are no match for the Mormons that come to their door. There’s a reason for that.

He contrasts this also with how he sees himself as a Christian now and how he would interact with Mormons today. This is a statement our church needs to hear.

Contrary to what the world seems to preach, true love is not affirming others in their sinful and lost state, it is proclaiming the Christ who can liberate them from captivity. Therefore, my greatest calling as a Christian is to be a conduit of God’s love to unbelievers by proclaiming to them the grace and truth found only in Jesus of Nazareth.

I also quite loved this simple statement he has later on

I’m not saved because of a church; I’m part of the church because I am saved.

But the long and the short of it is he did meet a pastor who challenged him and urged him to read the New Testament. He also was regularly going to a place Mormons seemed to hang out with for some time called the Edgewater Hotel. There, he would meet a man named Erik who would become a sort of mentor for him.

As you can tell from the description I have given, Micah does become a Christian. This led to his family and his girlfriend who he eventually married becoming Christians. Not only that, his sister married one of the missionaries he had been on his mission with who also became a Christian.

Micah’s book is a delightful read and there are so many quotes I highlighted that I won’t share, but get to the point of what a difference Jesus makes in your life. I won’t share them because they do come up in places where he is having interactions with the leaders in his church that could spoil plot points. One statement I will tell you is that he says to not make Jesus part of your testimony. Make Jesus your testimony.

If there was anything I would change in this book, I have just two criticisms.

It can be hard to follow the timeline since he goes from when the events happened, which can make sense, but they can be hard to follow for the person who wasn’t there. That could lead to confusion at times. I also know one chapter was on a hurricane and yet I was wondering what the whole chapter was about with the title until the end as the hurricane was never named and if you didn’t live there, you might not know about it.

The other is that I would like to have heard something about how Micah was doing his day-to-day duties. While he was wrestling with this, was he still also going around telling people about Joseph Smith and believing in him and giving a testimony? What kinds of things was he saying on his mission to people he visited?

Despite those critiques, I still see this as a great story about a young man being changed by Jesus on his mission, something we should all consider should happen. It also lets people in and see what the world of Mormonism is really like. I also don’t know any book that is an account of a missionary becoming a Christian besides this one, so if you want to understand Mormonism more, give this one a try.

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

 

 

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