Tag Archives: Doug Geivett

Mentoring

Here are some ideas for your Christmas gift giving this year

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I was supposed to work all through Thanksgiving on a project, but I ended up doing all my Christmas shopping. If you have a lot of people on your list like I do, you might want to consider the “Ministry Give-away” offers from Randolph Productions. They sell intelligent design DVDs and the new Illustra Media production of the Craig-Hitchens debate that occurred in Aptil this year at Biola University.

Here’s what I bought:

The ministry give-away packs are neat because they give you the DVD in a simple envelope. It doesn’t have the fancy packaging but then again, it costs $3 per DVD!! (or less, if you buy a bigger pack). I bought the 11-packs, which come with 1 full sized DVD ($20) and 10 give-away DVDs ($3 each!). Shipping is FREE. They have packages up to 100 give-away DVDs! But they don’t yet have Darwin’s Dilemma in Ministry give-away packs yet, so I bought a bunch of those at a discounted price from Amazon.

I have seen the Lee Strobel DVDs they are offering and I do not recommend them, as they are not as detailed as the Illustra/Coldwater DVDs. They try to cover too much in too little time, and some things get missed. Also, they are a bit too stylish and slick for my taste, with too much about Lee’s personal life experiences.

I haven’t actually got the DVDs from Randolph Productions yet, so… you might want to wait and see if mine are done right before you order anything from them! This is my first time ordering from them.

UPDATE: They shipped it by FEDEX ground and e-mailed me again.

Greer-Heard lectures

The Greer-Heard Point/Counterpoint forum is an annual debate run by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The only ones worth buying are the 2005 and 2009 ones, and they are both really, really worth buying. I will be writing about both of these pretty soon. The 2005 ones come on CD, although I e-mailed them and asked them to put up an MP3 version of it so y’all could all get it for a better price. No response yet on that.

The 2005 Greer-Heard forum is available on CDs for $38:

  • J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright — Jesus’ Resurrection – opening speeches and dialogue
  • R. Douglas Geivett — “What Should We Believe about Belief in the Resurrection”
  • Chuck Quarles — “The Gospel of Peter: A Pre-Canonical Resurrection Narrative?”
  • William Lane Craig — “Resurrection: Does it Matter?”
  • Gary Habermas — “Mapping Recent Trends in Critical Resurrection Theories”
  • Craig Evans — “The Place of Wright and Crossan in Jesus Research”
  • Ted Peters — “The Future of the Resurrection”
  • Concluding Comments from J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright

Wright laid out his standard case for the 6 mutations, and Crossan tried to explain the resurrection as metaphor. Crossan was hard to pin down, but he eventually did come clean in the discussion time, and even allowed the empty tomb. Doug Geivett’s response was the jewel in a magnificent crown of debate. He was merciless. Chuck Quarles and Craig Evans were very effective and Craig and Habermas were OK. Ted Peters supported Crossan’s view.

The 2009 Greer-Heard forum is available for MP3 download for $15:

  • Harold A. Netland and Paul F. Knitter — Religious Pluralism – opening speeches and dialog
  • Paul Copan — “Is the World Religiously Ambiguous? No, and Neither Is Religious Pluralism”
  • S. Mark Heim — “No Other Name: The Gospel and True Religions”
  • R. Douglas Geivett — “The Futility of Neutrality: The Uniqueness of Jesus in a World of Religions”
  • Millard J. Erickson — Evangelical Philosophical Society Plenary Address
  • Terrence Tilley — “Principles for Assessing Theologies of Religious Diversity”
  • Keith Yandell — “Does Religious Pluralism Have Sufficient Rationale?”
  • Concluding Comments from Paul Knitter & Harold Netland

I just downloaded this set and it is extremely addictive. I’ve listened to it THREE TIMES! Netland was pretty moderate, and Knitter was a pretty typical religious pluralist – irrational and indifferent to evidence. Copan’s response was the best of a great bunch – it was vicious. Yandell’s paper a close second (his paper had to be read by someone else – if he had read it, he might have surpassed Copan!) Geivett was pretty moderate this time, but still good. Heim was OK and Erickson just made some general comments about postmodernism that were OK. Tilley supported Knitter’s view.

The upcoming 2010 forum on “The Message of Jesus” is set for February 2010. They got Crossan to come back, which is great, because he is a fine speaker and a good participant in these dialogs. I can’t stand his positions, though. And his opponent is Ben Witherington, who is a well-respected historian. Non-Christian respondents are Amy-Jill Levine and Alan F. Segal. Christian respondents are Craig A. Evans, Craig Blomberg, and Darrell L. Bock. All 3 of them participate in debates before.

  • John Dominic Crossan & Ben Witherington III — opening speeches and dialog
  • Darrell L. Bock — response
  • Amy-Jill Levine — response
  • Craig Blomberg — response
  • Craig A. Evans — response
  • Alan F. Segal — response

I’ll probably get this set as MP3s if they keep the price down. It looks like this will be a good one.

I like Craig Evans and Darrell Bock MORE than Witherington and Blomberg, because I think they”ll be more aggressive. All four of these Christian scholars have participated in debates before. Blomberg and Witherington were respondents to the Craig-Crossan debate (the book version). Craig Evans responded to Crossan in the 2005 Greer-Heard forum. And Darrell Bock responded to Borg in the Craig-Borg debate.

You can probably find free lectures from many of these scholars at the Veritas Forum web site.

The best books of 2009, and some older ones you might have missed

If you haven’t bought “Signature in the Cell” yet, what are you waiting for? This is the book of the year. It was named to Amazon’s top 10 science books and to the Best Books of 2009 list compiled by the UK Times Literary Supplement, (selected by the brilliant and honest atheist Thomas Nagel, who is the atheist I would most like to see become a Christian, now that Anthony Flew has left atheism).

For apologetics, get William Lane Craig’s “Reasonable Faith“, 3rd edition, “Contending With Christianity’s Critics“, “Passionate Conviction“, “God Is great, God is Good” and “Tactics” by Greg Koukl. For economics, get “Money, Greed and God” by Jay Richards. For the resurrection, get “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. For bio-ethics, get “The Case for Life” by Scott Klusendorf. For marriage, get “Taken into Custody” by Stephen Baskerville, and also “Love and Economics” by Jennifer Roback Morse. For politics, the book of the year is “Liberty and Tyranny” by Mark Levin.

Charities

For the person who has everything, you can always donate to charity on their behalf.

This year I donated to the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, the Ruth Institute, Reasonable Faith, the Evangelical Philosophical Society, and Michele Bachmann. I also donated to specific debates and conferences that featured Christian scholars in dialog with non-Christian speakers, in non-Christian settings. My goal is to address non-Christian audiences with scholarship that is consistent with and supportive of the Christian worldview. I favor charities that use sound logical arguments supported by objective, verificable evidence.

Something just for fun

I recommend the 1960s spy series “Danger Man“, starring Patrick McGoohan. They’re about $25 from Amazon. McGoohan’s character John Drake is the anti-James Bond. He always put the mission first – he never allowed himself to be manipulated or distracted by enemy agents. And it’s filmed in black and white – exactly the way secret agent John Drake operates.

Here are a couple of videos to give you an idea of what it’s all about.

John Drake infiltrates a murder-for-hire ring based in Italy:

John Drake attempts to kidnap a professional assassin behind the Iron Curtain:

I hope talking about Danger Man doesn’t prevent Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 from adding this post to his Twitter feed. His list of recommended books is here.

Commentary

Two ways to conduct a Tea Party revolution against socialism

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GatewayPundit is reporting that the economic news is getting even worse.

Along with raising taxes on businesses, raising taxes on the “rich,” and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire…
President Obama will also announce the implementation of an expensive cap and trade energy policy this week to battle pretend global warming.

He cites Human Events’ report that we will lose between between $444 billion and $1.308 trillion of GDP output, and unemployment would increase 2.7% (= 4 million jobs lost), mostly in the manufacturing sector.

Well, we’re doomed. Or are we? I’ve found a couple of clever ideas for dealing Obama’s plans to plunge the United States into socialism.

The first idea is from Biola University professor Doug Geivett, who is a first-class evangelical Christian scholar. I met Doug at a philosophy conference on Providence and Open Theism at Wheaton College, IL in 2000. I remember asking him whether investments were a form of gambling. He explained that investing was not gambling, because investments fund the creation of new products and services that grow the economy.

Doug starts by noting Rick Santelli’s rant against Obama’s socialist policies which involve wealth redistribution from those who produce to those who consume. (Note: there is now a new rant up, with supply-sider Larry Kudlow).

In his post, Geivett enumerates the points made by Santelli:

First, fiscally responsible Americans don’t want to pay the bill for borrowers who can’t keep up with their mortgages.

Second, fiscally responsible Americans shouldn’t have to pay the bill for borrowers who can’t make their payments.

Third, this plan doesn’t rob the rich to give to the poor. It takes from every tax-paying American and turns it over as free cash to people who can afford to rent but can’t afford to buy.

Fourth, there are ways to get the federal government to pay attention, ways the government is totally unprepared for.

Santelli suggests that responsible, productive Americans may want to consider a revolution – a kind of Chicago Tea Party. Right now, the banks are being more careful about who they give credit to. This is not a problem for responsible people with good credit history. The government is giving out bailouts to banks in order to ease credit for irresponsible consumers – the same ones that got us into this mess in the first place.

Geivett describes what he thinks this Chicago Tea Party might look like:

For example, what do you think would happen if 30% of all Americans with an income of $50,000 or more organized to do the following two things:

  1. Convert all of their assets held in the stock market and at banks and credit unions into cold, hard cash (or gold bars holed up in their bank’s safe deposit boxes)?
  2. Refused to pay income tax for 18 months (or indefinitely)?

This would remove the money that banks use for consumer loans. If no one can get credit, then no one can default, and there is no need for bailouts to these delinquents. By refusing to pay income taxes for a period of time, the government would have no funds available for bailing out their favorite special interest groups. People might finally have to stop spending and start working and saving again.

Geivett goes on to describe how this plan should incorporate reduced consumer spending, which I agree with. Somehow, America has gone terribly wrong. We use to be a nation of workers and savers. But the progress of left-wing socialism, with all the redistributing of wealth from producers to free-riders, has caused us to drift into an irresponsible, immature, hedonistic culture.

Geivett’s plan made me think of a post I read before on “Going Galt”. What if all the people who produced wealth just stopped producing?

Do you ever wonder after dealing with all that is going on with the economy and the upcoming election if it’s getting to be time to “go John Galt”? For those of you who have never read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the basic theme is that John Galt and his allies take actions that include withdrawing their talents, “stopping the motor of the world,” and leading the “strikers” (those who refuse to be exploited) against the “looters” (the exploiters, backed by the government).

…

Obama talks about taking from those who are productive and redistributing to those who are not — or who are not as successful. If success and productivity is to be punished, why bother? Perhaps it is time for those of us who make the money and pay the taxes to take it easy, live on less, and let the looters of the world find their own way.

The National Taxpayers Union explains who pays the taxes that Democrats are redistributing to their freeloading constituents. The top 50% pays 97% of all income taxes collected! The lazy half the country is freeloading off of the productive half.

The second idea that I found for responding to Obama’s socialist bailouts is to move to Canada. Captain Capitalism had this post in which he compares the two economies and concludes that Canada has a better future than the United States. Canada has a smaller deficit, a smaller debt, and is not facing a meltdown from entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, like we are.

Investor’s Business Daily reports that:

By 2041, Social Security will be essentially broke, having exhausted its trust fund, those dollars amassed through decades of surplus payroll tax revenues that Congress will have already squandered on general budget expenditures. Medicare’s future is just as bleak. It is already spending more than it is receiving in payroll taxes.

The prime minister of Canada right now is economist Stephen Harper, a strong fiscal conservative in the mold of F.A. Hayek.

UPDATE 1: Michelle Malkin has even more ideas on what to do here.