At the last Sound Faith conference in 2024, I heard about a magnificent presentation by Michael Licona, that was based on his academic publications but presented with a slideshow to the layperson. In that presentation, he made a case that there was more flexibility for authors of biographies in ancient times than modern people understand.

My reaction to his presentation was that Christians who like normal inerrancy (and I do like my inerrancy that way) can keep it. But if you are fighting a skeptic like Bart Ehrman, then according to Licona, you can find enough flexibility in the style of ancient biographers to avoid contradictions in the Bible by understanding how ancient biographers worked.

So, I have been hoping that this presentation would become available, and now and here it is: 

Share that with all your non-Christian friends.

This presentation draws on Mike’s academic work, for example, his book “Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography” which was published in 2016 by Oxford University Press.

This book is not designed for evangelizing people who already accept the traditional view of inerrancy in the Bible. This is a book designed to allow skeptics to stop getting hung up on alleged contradictions. None of you reading this post needs to be convinced about inerrancy. But Bart Ehrman does, and so we need someone extra clever to make a special academic university press case designed for him.

Anyway, here is the news about the debate, which is their eighth debate! It happens on the first day of the Sound Faith 2025 conference, November 20-22, in Boston, Massachusetts:

This November, join Sound Faith 2025 in Boston for a three-day conference to learn from and engage with the most influential voices defending the Christian faith today. Held at the beautiful Tremont Temple Baptist Church, this event will feature interactive sessions on topics such as God’s existence, the resurrection of Jesus, faith and science, and more. One of the feature events will be a hard-hitting debate between Christian historian Michael Licona and agnostic textual critic Bart Ehrman – on a topic neither has ever publicly debated before! We’ll also have an in-depth discussion on the resurrection between Licona and Dale Allison, whom William Lane Craig described as “a very prominent New Testament scholar of considerable repute.” Our tremendous speaker lineup includes philosophers, historians, professional apologists, social media influencers, and more! The magic of these conferences happens when attendees are able to ask questions and have discussions with speakers and other attendees, so throughout the conference there will be tons of interactive opportunities, both inside and outside of the presentations. Our goal is this: to equip you with a SOUND FAITH ready to face the toughest challenges facing Christianity today!

The debate is on day 1 of the conference and then on day 2, Mike has to go up against another high-power historian, Dale Allison. Rose and I both have Dale Allison’s book on the resurrection, because although he is skeptical, everyone thinks his work on this topic is top shelf quality.

Now, I want to say one more thing about Mike’s arguments and who they are for. I had a friend Murdina (“Dina”) who lived in Inverness, Scotland and she was my best friend for a long time until she passed away. Just the wisest person you could ever meet. She had multiple degrees in medicine and was extremely respected in health care management. She was also Young Earth, King James Bible only, and super, hyper Calvinist. She used to call the middle knowledge view that I hold to “Middle Earth Hobbitry”. And she had lots of mocking nicknames for everything else that I liked, for example, calling my the Etrian Odyssey series of games that I love so much “Estrogen Oddity”. (Best. Music. Ever. And here is my favorite remix!)

Anyway, Dina had an atheist younger brother, who had abandoned the faith of the family and become an atheist. Because I had been buying her all the best books about evidential apologetics (Stephen C. Meyer) and free market economics (Thomas Sowell), she had really learned a lot about how to make a case with evidence. One day, her brother came up from Glasgow for a fishing trip. And Dina called me on Skype and dropped her phone into her pocket, so that I could hear them talking. Then she let her brother have it with both apologetics fists for about 2 hours. She used the arguments of old-Earth intelligent design and the minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus to smash every single objection he made from his brittle atheistic fundamentalist view of Christianity. By the end, he was so flustered that he started to say the most incoherent things, and I laughed and laughed at how badly she had beaten him.

For weeks after, this atheist brother would text her constantly, trying over and over to wiggle out from the thrashing that she had given him. But there was no escape. Although he had mocked her constantly prior to this engagement, in private and in public, he never ever mocked her again.

I asked her why she used the mainstream science arguments and the minimal facts argument, instead of just quoting the Bible to him, or trying to argue young Earth or KJV only. And she said “first step is to get him into the church. After that, I will fix his wrong views about the young Earth, my beloved KJV, and Reformed theology”.

I tell you all this so that you will understand how I see Mike Licona’s work. It is a tool for the most hardened skeptics. The first step, as Phillip E. Johnson used to say, is to get the thin edge of the wedge into the log. After that comes the hammering.

I don’t think anyone has ever debated the reliability of the gospels with an academic skeptic like Bart Ehrman eight times. To me, that says that Mike is a special person who is able to make friends with his opponents, so that they keep coming back. He isn’t rude, insulting and abrasive. So you have a rare package of extraordinary ability as a historian, paired with extraordinary character. And that’s what allows him to make a difference.

In this post, I go over a recent example of a violent crime where a Good Samaritan was punished for protecting the intended victims of the criminal. Then I want to take a look at the voting patterns of young women. Then I want to evaluate the demands made by conservative Christians and social conservatives that good men “protect women” under the current incentives and laws.

So, first, an example of how good men are treated when they do try to protect people from criminals.

Here is a re-cap of an old but famous case from 2023, reported in The Federalist:

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny was reportedly indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on Wednesday for defending New York City subway passengers from an erratic and threatening homeless man.

The incident in question occurred on May 21, when Jordan Neely — who had been arrested 44 times for “criminal conduct” and, at the time, “had an outstanding warrant for felony assault” — began threatening and getting violent with NYC subway passengers. During the episode, Neely allegedly kept repeating the phrases, “I’m going to kill you,” “I’m prepared to go to jail for life,” and “I’m willing to die.”

In response, Penny and two of his fellow passengers attempted to restrain Neely, which involved the former placing the latter in a headlock. Neely ultimately died during the encounter, with NYC’s medical examiner ruling the death a homicide.

According to sources who spoke with Fox News, Penny is being indicted “on one count each of criminally negligent homicide and second-degree manslaughter.” If convicted of the latter charge, Penny could face five to 15 years in prison.

Now, let’s see how young women voters feel about violent crime. Are they opposed to it? Are they opposed to opening the borders to criminals? Are they opposed to defunding the police?

The UK Mirror explains:

More than 100 women’s rights groups have warned “racist” attempts to link sexual violence with immigration are putting victims at increased risk.

Rape Crisis England and Wales, the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Refuge are among the organisations warning anti-migrant groups and politicans are “hijacking” survivors’ trauma. They have signed a letter to Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warning that sexual abuse must not be used for political gain – and those who spread misinformation must be held to account.

There’s an epidemic of sexual abuse in the UK right now, and immigrants are committing these offenses at rates far in excess of native citizens—foreign nationals (10.9% of pop) grabbed 28–34% of female sexual assault convictions and 25% of adult female rapes in 2024 alone. (Fact-checked AGAIN here by Sky News) But are women concerned about it? Do they want to stop it? Or are they more concerned about being seen by others as tolerant and compassionate?

What about in America? New York City had a Muslim communist who wants to replace the much of the police force with social workers on the ballot. So, did young women vote against Islam and against defunding the police?

CNN has the exit polls:

84% of women from the ages of 18-29 supported the Muslim communist.

And they support all his policies:

• Oppose Mass Deportations and ICE Raids: Mamdani vows to block federal immigration enforcement in New York, labeling ICE operations as “state terror” and pledging to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation, undermining national border security and encouraging illegal entry.
• Declare New York a Sanctuary Jurisdiction: He demands the city and state prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE, refusing to honor detainers for criminal aliens and turning New York into a magnet for unchecked migration that strains housing, schools, and public resources.
• Push Amnesty and Citizenship for Undocumented: Mamdani calls for a blanket pathway to citizenship for all 11 million+ undocumented immigrants, rewarding lawbreaking while sidelining legal immigrants and imposing massive costs on taxpayers for welfare, healthcare, and education.
• End Border Wall and Detention Funding: He explicitly opposes funding for border walls, detention centers, or any expansion of ICE, framing enforcement as “cruel” and pushing to defund agencies tasked with securing the southern border against drugs, trafficking, and illegal crossings.
• Support Open Refugee Resettlement: Mamdani advocates flooding New York with unchecked refugee intakes from high-risk regions, rejecting vetting reforms and ignoring the strain on local services already overwhelmed by migrant surges.

So, the question is this: should good men be expected to protect young women, when they 1) overwhelmingly vote to increase the risks of violent crime, and 2) overwhelmingly vote against self-defense (charge Daniel Penny and put him on trial for a year), and voting against gun ownership by law-abiding citizens?

Final point: what do pro-marriage Christians and pro-marriage conservatives have to say about all of this? Well, pro-marriage Christians and pro-marriage conservatives look at this situation and they have two responses.

First, they do not dare say anything to these young women about their choices, or the long-term consequences of those choices. Whatever women are choosing, they have to be allowed to “follow their hearts”. Any bad consequences that follow should be pushed onto the good men who opposed their choices. The good men should be expected to “fix” the problems caused by these young women. And if the young women like, they can then arrest those good men, and put them on trial, maybe even send them to prison for a few years… or for many years. Remember, these are the same people who don’t lift a finger to ban single mother welfare, mixed schools, Title IX violation of due process, false accusations in family courts to obtain custody illegitimately, etc. so they have no interest in engineering the production of good men to protect women. They create the conditions that cause men to be timid, then they complain that the timid men they created are timid.

Second, they demand that good men protect and provide for women who are overwhelmingly leftist. Good men have no agency of their own! They only exist to provide utility to young women, including the 84% of young women who vote for Sharia Law and communism. Good men can have no plans of their own, and they are not allowed to have any standards for women that might exclude women who voted for Mamdani. NO! Good men are just walking cash dispensers who must also risk their lives to fight the criminals that their Mamdani-supporting wives let in through the doors and windows of the home. And they must do it without using violence, and certainly not with firearms! Only the criminals can have guns.

Is it any wonder that good men are opting out of the demands of pro-marriage Christians and pro-marriage conservatives? They are like the people that C. S. Lewis describes in his essay “Men Without Chests” from his book “The Abolition of Man“. They insist on the positive outcomes, while doing everything possible to engineer negative outcomes. They raise the price of good behavior, then insult good men who decline to pay the costs as being “weak”. That’s the Christian and conservative leadership we have. The irony is that it is the pious Christian leaders and the chivalrous social conservatives who are weak. They are the ones who are 1) refusing to confront young women about their choices and 2) refusing to listen to men who are telling them how to engineer conditions where it is rational for good men to act.

Ratio Christi is my favorite campus ministry. And the chapter that does the best job of tackling the toughest and most impactful topics is the Ohio State University chapter, which is run by my good friend Eric Chabot. Eric just finished teaching a series on intelligent design to the students. He also brings the best evidential apologists to speak on campus. This time it’s Frank Turek.

Here are the details:

Join Frank LIVE tonight (MON. 11/3) at THE Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) as he presents, ‘If God, Why Evil? A Q&A in Honor of My Friend Charlie Kirk.’ The event kicks off at 7:30 PM ET in the Ohio Union Archie Griffin Ballroom

Please come, bring a friend, and be part of the conversation. Thanks to our generous donors, this event is FREE and open to the public. If you can’t attend in person, you can join us LIVE on YouTube HERE or your favorite social media channel.

The live stream will be here at 7:30 PM Eastern TONIGHT:

I hope you can tune in. I certainly will. And please pray now for God to make use of this event to lead people to him, and maybe even some people who will go on to have an influence on the university campus, just like Eric and Frank are doing now.

The problem of evil is one of the most frequently occurring questions that non-Christians ask. Sadly, most Christians are not well equipped to answer this question. But Frank Turek has a long history of working on this issue, so you will hear good answers from him. Even more important, you can see the real questions that college students are asking.

There is not much time given to the task of evangelism in most churches. Pastors seem to want people to avoid preparation, and just bypass the real questions that non-Christians ask. So, they don’t equip you to answer questions like “Does God Exist?” or “How Could a Good God Allow Evil?” You’re just supposed to say that Jesus forgives your sins, and makes your life better (somehow). This is not good preparation for answering the questions of college students or the non-Christian co-workers you find in the workplace.

My current church has the same attitude about dismissing apologetics training. Two weeks ago, one of the co-pastors at my church told the flock “the best evangelists are often new Christians, because they just explain what Jesus did for them in their own lives”. This past Sunday, the other co-pastor also praised the ability of people to evangelize without putting in any work. So, we are down to the level of the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses now, just trying to appeal to people with personal testimony, and hoping that their bosoms will catch fire with feelings.

When you watch an event like Frank Turek on a university campus, you get the real experience of evangelism. This is a case where someone has put in the time to study these issues deeply, and write about them, even in published works. Frank has also done debates with people like Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine. He has spoken and written about the most controversial issues, such as LGBT and pro-life. Most people in church tend to shy away from controversial issues or they just quote the Bible to people who don’t believe the Bible. Frank does a better job.

Eric told me that they have booked a room to hold 1000 students, and the event has been well advertised. You should share the link to the live stream on your social media, as well. Make sure you take the opportunity to see what evangelism to non-Christians really looks like outside the church doors. It’s not just sharing your testimony, or quoting the right Bible verse to people who don’t even believe the Bible. It’s about being ready with to answer anyone who asks you, and in the same way that Jesus answered his skeptics: with evidence. You might not be able to perform the miracles, but you can certainly learn how to make the case from God’s creation and designing work in nature, and make the historical case for the reliability of the New Testament and the resurrection of Jesus. And that does make you a better evangelist.

If you feel led to invest in what Eric is doing at Ohio State University, you can find his donate link here.