My close friends know that Walter Bradley is the Christian scholar I admire the most. I’ve mentioned Dr. Bradley on the Knight and Rose Show several times, and plugged the book about his life “For a Greater Purpose: The Life and Legacy of Walter Bradley“. Dr. Bradley passed away recently, and so people have been paying their respects.

My good friend Kevin, who is an amazing Christian man and a real hero to me, mentioned an article about Dr. Bradley by Dr. William Dembski. Kevin asked me to write something of my own. Work has just been draining all my fuel lately, so this is the best I can do. I am not a perfectionist, and I try to write these posts in under 1-2 hours each day, so there is a lot more to say than what you will find here.

I first encountered Dr. Bradley shortly after I arrived in America by  ordering some of his campus lectures from Veritas Forum. These lectures had a huge impact on me, even causing me to have a plan to do a PhD in computer science and go into teaching. I figured out by listening to all of Dr. Bradley’s lectures that this is what he was always urging Christian graduate students to do. Well, my plans got derailed because it took me 16 years to get a permanent residency, and another 5 years to get my citizenship. Even if I got the PhD then, I would have much less time for research and teaching.

Still, I thought it might be fun to list out the lectures that I ordered from Veritas Forum that featured Walter Bradley:

• Dr. Walter Bradley – Giants In The Land – Georgia – 1997
• Dr. Walter Bradley – Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer – Georgia – 1997
• Dr. Walter Bradley – Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer – Penn State – 1997
• Dr. Walter Bradley – A Scientist’s Quest For Success – Penn State – 1997
• Dr. Walter Bradley – Truth In Religion – Georgia – 1997
• Dr. Walter Bradley – Truth In Religion – Penn State – 1997

If you want to listen to some of these lectures, I uploaded them as MP3s here, from the original audio cassettes, which are unavailable now, and not online anywhere. The key ones are the “Testimony”, and the 3 versions of “Giants in the Land”. The sound quality is not the best, and there is a pause in the recording from when I flipped the cassettes. If you listen to those, and read “Cyrano de Bergerac” in the original French, then you’ll know a lot about me.

The Walter Bradley lectures I remember the most were Testimony and different versions of Giants in the Land. He talked about how he grew up. His Dad committed suicide when he was young, and he was always poor. He worked a lot of jobs to make ends meet, and was excellent in his academic studies and sports. He wanted so badly to be a success, but found achieving success very empty and unfulfilling. What was fulfilling for him was his relationship with God, and serving God. It’s lessons like this that allowed me to persist all this time, even without the traditional home and church community that most Christians have. I was trained by these two lectures to operate alone in a harsh environment, like a secular university or workplace.

One part that stood out to me was his explanation of how he stopped viewing Christianity as a set of rules, instead of as a relationship. He explained this by telling how his affection for his girlfriend and eventual wife Ann caused him to finally understand that Christianity was not about stopping the things that you most liked doing, and starting the things that you least liked doing. Even though he didn’t have a lot of money for dating, he liked to take Ann on dates, because he loved her. And that’s how Christians ought to feel about the how the Boss wants them to act. Prioritizing Boss in your conduct and life-planning is easy when you are in a relationship with a Boss who leads from the front. For me, a valuable lesson was that you don’t have to care about your reputation if you are excellent in things like education, career, marriage and finances.

He also talked a lot about how to be a Christian in academia, and the importance of professors being a resource for their students. He was very familiar with the law, and threatened to sue whenever he had to “butt heads” with the Dean. But he also had a lot of amazing adventures by being willing to be identified as a Christian. He explains in “Giants in the Land” how he would feel about identifying as a Christian to his secular colleagues. If only every Christian son and daughter could have heard this lecture before going to college, we would never have lost any of them. Listening to Dr. Bradley talk about the struggles of being a Christian on a secular university campus was just magical. I think a lot of them just feel ashamed of moral rules and truth claims that they were never prepared to defend at the university or in the workplace. They were never taught to see the life of an evidence-wielding secret agent as more fun than getting drunk and having hook-up sex.

Walter Bradley’s thoughts about being a Christian in a hostile environment formed my character and prepared me for the secular workplace. Unlike many Christian leaders who started out conservative and then caved to the secular left for prestige, I never expected non-Christians co-workers to like me. Walter Bradley had already warned me not to expect that. I built my castle with scientific evidence, up on the hill of analytical philosophy from William Lane Craig. Later on, I added a moat around the castle, with the economics of Hayek and Sowell.

His lectures made me want to become a Christian professor. But sadly, I never did get to be a Christian professor like Dr. Bradley. I used to cry about how long it was taking for me to make progress on my “become a Christian professor” plan. Maybe some day… I have had offers to teach introductory computer science courses at Christian universities.

I wish more of our Christian leaders were evidence-based like Dr. Bradley – then then we’d avoid the issues plaguing many denominations. Whenever you look at someone like Russell Moore, David French, Brent Leatherwood, Ed Stetzer, David Platt, etc., you are looking at someone who expected that Christianity would make them feel good and be liked in non-Christian environments. Walter Bradley killed that expectation dead for me. I think that’s why people who knew him, like William Dembski and Robert Marks, have been so faithful to the Boss with their research and writing. By the way, I have met Dembski, Marks and Bradley in real life! I’ve also met Kelly Monroe Kullberg, founder of the Veritas Forum. Those are the type of Christian that I look up to. Who are your role models?

Finally, I have to mention the website “Leadership University“, which was my lifeblood during my undergraduate years. Not only did they have all the transcripts of William Lane Craig’s debates, but they also had many articles by Walter Bradley, and other scholars I loved: J. P. Moreland, Henry Schaefer, Phillip E. Johnson, etc. There were tons of articles there, including articles on controversial topics, like homosexuality. You could find anything that you were being challenged about. And then I also got a lot out of Access Research Network, which had amazing videos that I would watch dozens and dozens of times until I could remember every word.

Many of the same videos I used to watch over and over are now available free, including one with Dr. Walter Bradley.

• On the Origin of Life – An Interview with Dr. Dean Kenyon
• Focus on the Origin of Life – An Interview with Dr. Charles Thaxton
• Darwinism on Trial – Phillip E. Johnson
• Blind Watchmaker? A Skeptical Look at Darwinism – Phillip E. Johnson
• Can Science Know the Mind of God? – Phillip E. Johnson
• A Critique of Darwinist Icons – Dr. Johnathan Wells
• Doubting Darwin: An Interview with Dr. Scott Minnich
• Intelligent Design: From the Big Bang to Irreducible Complexity – Dr. Michael Behe
• Creation of the Cosmos – Dr. Walter Bradley
• Scientifically Testable Consequences of Fine-tuning Related Arguments & Hypotheses – Dr. Robin Collins
• On the Origin of the Cosmos – An Interview with Dr. Michael Strauss

Anyway, if you haven’t checked out the book about Bradley’s life, get it. And if you want to know what makes me tick, check out the lectures I mentioned. There are other things that had a huge effect on me, but those lectures are my heart and soul. I would say that my resilience over my time at the university and in the secular workplace comes from people like Walter Bradley.

I am also grateful for Art Battson of ARN, who worked on those videos so that I could buy them and watch to them when I was still young. I never met a single non-Christian in the workplace who could defeat these arguments.

By the way, these campus lectures are still going on today – if you want to donate to a great cause, check out my friend Eric Chabot who organizes campus events at THE Ohio State University. He blogs here. I support his work. The lectures that he organizes may be bullet-proofing the worldviews of the next Wintery Knights!

Well, if there ever was a good time for good news, it’s Christmas time. Now is the time for everyone to remember that our biggest problem – our separation from God problem – has already been solved, because God stepped into history. And if you live in a country that is going in the wrong direction – like the UK – then it can be a very good thing to remember. And that’s exactly what 60% of young people in Britain are planning to do.

Here’s the story from GB News.

It says:

Young Britons are increasingly turning to Christianity as they are “crying out or cultural and moral confidence”, Quentin Letts has told GB News.

Reacting to staggering new data, the parliamentary sketchwriter said UK leaders are “shying away from the Church” and Britain “doesn’t stand for anything anymore”.

New polling by Tearfund has shown that 60 per cent of Gen Z Britons (born between 1997 and 2012) are intending on attending a church service this Christmas.

The data also found that 45 per cent of British adults are planning to attend church this Christmas, which is a sharp rise from recent years.

The article notes that that 60% number is DOUBLE the number of people going to church who are from older generations – boomers and up. As I blogged about previously, it’s mostly young boys who are becoming more conservative and returning to church. Surveys show that young women are becoming more leftist, and less religious.

The article states that the youngsters are interested in two things: 1) formal church services with “smells and bells” and / or 2) conservative preaching with truth and condemnation, i.e. – “fire and brimstone”. I think this is exactly what’s lacking in the UK these days. But I don’t want this to be a political post.

I’ve now hit the time that I was thinking about for early retirement, and it’s caused me to make a few adjustments myself. And part of that is making sure that I get steady doses of conservative preaching and theology. Sometimes, when you are working full-time and fussing about investments and house repairs and chores, it is hard to find time to read the Bible and listen to sermons and Sunday school. So, I am trying to redeem my weights and cardio time with Bible teaching.

For this, I have turned to Mike Winger, and his wonderful YouTube channel. So far, I have been working my way through his playlist on Calvinism, and when he explains the meaning of all the texts, and makes a very strong case, I just get very excited to understand what the Bible is saying.

Here are the three parts that made me say “WOW!”:

• Calvinism, Arminianism, Election & Predestination: Romans 8:29-30, 33
• Non-Calvinist Interpretation of Romans 9
• Why God Hardens Hearts: Romans 9:17-24

And today (Monday), I watched this one:

• Unbiblical stuff the Catholic Church teaches: Mary, Indulgences, Eucharist, Priests, 7 Sacraments

Now, my point in posting 3 lectures critical of Calvinism, and one 1 lecture critical of Catholicism is not to offend everyone. It’s just because this is how I think boys like to approach religion, with lots of Bible teaching and thinking about history and what the meaning of texts are. Boys aren’t think about the social aspects of “religion” – the family gatherings and the getting along and the social aspects. Boys are thinking about truth and disagreements, and why people disagree. And that’s why I picked these to watch myself! To understand why people disagree. To find out who is right.

I’ll just say that I learned a lot of things that I just did not know before when I watched this 4 lectures, and it just made me think that the Bible is really clever, and well worth reading. It kind of re-captured the feelings I had when I was reading the Bible as a young man, and gathering up all the answers from the text, and trying to put them into practice.

If there is one thing that comes out of these Mike Winger lectures, it’s that Christianity is not something that you should take passively, as a spectator sport. It’s not something to accept uncritically from others. But it’s also not something you should do without considering the study of others. I guess I would say that each person has to investigate for themselves, and part of being a good investigator is listening to the reasoning of other people.

I guess as Christians, we often want to make things simple for people, maybe because we don’t want simple people to feel dumb. I think that’s a mistake when we are dealing with young people. Young people want to know if these things are true, and they want to understand the meaning of the text. It can be tempting to brush aside their questions. But a much better idea is to enourage them to dig into the meaning of the text and have reasons for their beliefs.

Everyone is falling over themselves to say “everyone is equally right” these days – especially in the UK.  Feelings are seen by many as more important than truth. I think Christians need to study harder, debate and disagree instead.

One of the reasons why I have an alias for my speaking and writing is that I have seen people in the workplace go after Christians and conservatives who spoke out on controversial issues. It’s not unusual for people to go after Christians and conservatives on issues like evolution, global warming, LGBT, BLM, etc. And by go after, I mean cancel them, fire them, make them pay money.

One of the people who tracks this sort of ideological pressuring of Christians and conservatives is Tyler O’Neil, who writes for the Daily Signal. He had a recent article posted where he talked about a case of cancel culture going on in Cleveland, Ohio. Now, you might think “Ohio is a red state” but cities like Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and even Cincinnati are pretty blue. And Christians and conservatives living in these cities don’t have the same freedom to speak as people in Nashville, TN or Birmingham, AL.

Anyway, here’s the story, which concerns the attempted cancelling of Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue:

[M]ore than 100 LGBTQ+ leaders and organizations across Ohio signed an open letter denouncing the City Club for hosting Baer and urging the venue to “cancel or modify this forum in a way that does not platform an organization that has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQIA2S+ hate group.”

The letter makes four demands: cancel the event or include an LGBTQ+ activist; replace Moulthrop with a likely pro-LGBTQ+ “external moderator”; “disavow platforming hate speech”; or “structure the event so that diverse and impacted perspectives are not only present but also meaningfully centered.”

More than 20 organizations—including HRC Cleveland, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, Equality Ohio, GLAAD, and Plexus LGBT & Allied Chamber of Commerce—signed the letter, which aims to “prevent extremism from going unchallenged” and suggests a distinction between “facilitating dialogue and platforming organized hate.”

“Free speech is a cornerstone of our democracy,” Dwayne Steward, CEO and executive director of Equality Ohio, told The Daily Signal. Yet he argued that Baer’s message is “rooted in oppression and erasure.”

That part always makes me laugh – the invocation of “tolerance”, “inclusion”, “diversity”, “equality” and “free speech” by secular left fascists. I have seen this so many times with my own eyes at university, in the FT100 IT workplace, and these speeches by left-wing activists. They love to use these words, but then they follow it up with actions that show no respect for the human rights of the people they disagree with. Just look up the stories of the Christian bakers, florists or photographers. Or look up the story of Floyd Lee Corkins and his attempted domestic terrorism at the Family Research Council HQ.

And remember, this is coming just a little while after a high-profile assassination of a well-known conservative Christian by a left-wing assassin. And this combination of cancel culture and domestic terrorist actions is not uncommon among secular leftists.

I have noticed a very strange thing when I talk to regular non-apologetics-equipped Christians at church or at work about how much they advocate for Biblical views about controversial issues. On the one hand, Christians really want me to know that if they were threatened with death for their faith in Jesus, they would totally be ready to die for their faith in Jesus. But, when I look at their social media, it’s filled with non-controversial things. Their travels, their athletic achievements, their sports teams, photos of their kids, etc. So, there is this weird thing going on where we POTENTIALLY have millions of bold martyrs for Christ, but ACTUALLY have a bunch of Christians in hiding.

And listen, I don’t blame these hiding Christians, because I’m careful myself about what I say under my own name, that’s why I have an alias, and probably why I have no wife and no kids (because a wife and kids means you have responsibilities and obligations that keep you from losing your job due to speaking out). What I’m saying is that we need to have laws and policies that make it as easy for the hiding Christians to speak their minds. That’s why we have to get noisy when we see the rights of Christians and conservatives curtailed by bullies from the secular left. There are a lot of people watching who want to know if it is safe, and we have to fight to make it safe for them.

I wish I didn’t have to have an alias. But in order to survive in STEM programs at university, and then in corporate America, I had to have an alias. Some people have lives where they are strong enough financially and well-connected socially that they have what they need to speak out already, and that’s good. But many Christians and conservatives are not safe to speak out without being punished. They are running the calculations, and choosing to stay silent. We need to make it as easy as possible for them to speak their minds, so they can have the impact that they are meant to have.