Mike Licona is one of my favorite Christian apologists. This lecture is even better than the last one I posted. I think that both of these lectures are must-see lectures for men. Men will love these lectures.
He explains why the four biographies in the New Testament should be accepted as historically accurate: (55 minutes)
Summary:
What a Baltimore Ravens helmet teaches us about the importance of truth
What happens to Christians when they go off to university?
The 2007 study on attitudes of American professors to evangelical Christians
Authors: Who wrote the gospels?
Bias: Did the bias of the authors cause them to distort history?
Contradictions: What about the different descriptions of events in the gospels?
Dating: When were the gospels written?
Eyewitnesses: Do the gospel accounts go back to eyewitness testimony?
This is basic training for Christians. They ought to show this lecture whenever new people show up, because pastors should not quote the Bible until everyone listening has this information straight.
HHS forces religious organizations to cover contraception
Evangelicals and political engagement
Barack Obama: women need abortion in order to be equal
what does the Bible say about abortion?
do people have intrinsic value?
This podcast does not discuss how Susan G. Komen backed away from their decision to not fund Planned Parenthood after the mainstream media put pressure on them to continue funding the largest abortion provider in the United States. But the LTI guys are smart – they were skeptical about giving money to Susan G. Komen even after the initial announcement. Also note that one of the nice things about Scott Klusendorf is that he is an evangelical Christian – not a Roman Catholic. So it’s nice to see an evangelical Christian taking the lead on moral issues – it makes me proud to be an evangelical. Evangelical men ought to be as well informed about moral issues as they are about politics, science and foreign policy.
Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood
Mary sent me a story on the Susan G. Komen Foundation that analyzes how they are linked to Planned Parenthood from the Wall Street Journal. It’s by Robbie George of Princeton, so you have to read it!
Excerpt:
The Susan G. Komen Foundation, an organization dedicated since 1982 to fighting, and one day curing, breast cancer, decided to extricate itself from the culture wars by discontinuing grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions. The grants Komen had been making amounted to $650,000 last year, funding some 19 local Planned Parenthood programs that offered manual breast exams but only referrals for mammograms performed elsewhere.
The reality is that Planned Parenthood—with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion—does little in the way of screening for breast cancer. But the organization is very much in the business of selling abortions—more than 300,000 in 2010, according to Planned Parenthood. At an average cost of $500, according to various sources including Planned Parenthood’s website, that translates to about $164 million of revenue per year.
So how did Planned Parenthood and its loyal allies in politics and the media react to Komen’s efforts to be neutral in the controversy over abortion?
Faced with even the tiniest depletion in the massive river of funds Planned Parenthood receives yearly, the behemoth mobilized its enormous cultural, media, financial and political apparatus to attack the Komen Foundation in the press, on TV and through social media.
The organization’s allies demonized the charity, attempting to depict the nation’s most prominent anti-breast cancer organization as a bedfellow of religious extremists. A Facebook page was set up to “Defund the Komen Foundation.” In short, Planned Parenthood took breast-cancer victims as hostages.
Komen’s leaders had good reason to believe their organization could disintegrate under Planned Parenthood’s assault. On Friday the charity issued a statement “apologizing to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.” The statement assured Planned Parenthood’s supporters that, like any other organization, it is eligible to apply for grants in the future.
I think the bottom line is this. There are plenty of non-Christians giving money to causes like this. If you are a Christians, you’re much better off giving your money to an organization like Life Training Institute. At the very least, you should all buy “The Case for Life”, which is the best small book on pro-life apologetics.
By the way, I blogged on the previous LTI podcast here. That one was from March 2010. I hope they make more of these regularly.
The usual attempts to defend the historical reliability of the New Testament are often fairly general in nature. These arguments are typically based on the quantity, quality, and early date of the available New Testament manuscripts; the traditional authorship of the books; extrabiblical confirmation; and a few archaeological discoveries. This evidence for the trustworthiness of the New Testament is often contrasted with ancient classical Greek and Roman writings, which do not exhibit the same wealth of data.
Lesser known among conservative scholars, however, are several, more recent and specific approaches that critical scholars apply to the Gospel texts. One of these approaches involves applying certain critical criteria of authenticity to particular texts, namely, to events and sayings that are reported in the four gospels. These contemporary techniques have mined many gems that indicate the historical richness of the Gospel accounts, while illuminating many aspects of Jesus’ life.
WINTERY KNIGHT 