Tag Archives: Gospel

Michael Licona debates Dale Martin on the divinity of Jesus

Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Dale Martin discuss the question “Did Jesus Believe He Was Divine?” The second evening of the 2012 Religion Soup discussion took place Oct 19, 2012 at Acadia University.

Michael R. Licona (PhD University of Pretoria): is Associate Professor in Theology at Houston Baptist University. He was interviewed by Lee Strobel in his book The Case for the Real Jesus and appeared in Strobel’s The Case for Christ. He is the author of numerous books including The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.

Dale B. Martin (PhD Yale University): is the Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University. He specializes in the New Testament and Christian Origins. His books include: Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity; The Corinthian Body; Inventing Superstition; and Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation.

The video is here:

Here is the MP3 file. (79 Mb)

I did not summarize this, but I watched Licona’s opening speech. It was awesome! Both speakers are easy to listen to.

Dale Martin is openly gay, so he’s not conservative on what the Bible teaches, for sure, and strikes me as one of these postmodern Jesus Seminar people who uses religious words, but is a naturalist who believes in a liberal Jesus as a nice idea, but doesn’t believe in the conservative historical Jesus at all. He seems to be more like these John Dominic Crossan / Marcus Borg types. I looked at some of his publications, and I think it’s a situation where the liberal sexual practices he advocates constrain his theological and historical views. Sort of like John Dominic Crossan’s atheism and pluralism and political liberalism constrain his historical work. Still though, smart guy and in a debate he addresses the evidence, so it’s good to hear another voice.

The one annoying thing about this is that you should skip ahead about 7.5 minutes to get to the start of the debate. I would like to see churches get involved in doing these sorts of events. We need to get used to discussing these things with evidence.

What North Korea teaches Christians about the importance of politics and economics

Christian apologist Frank Turek writes about it at Townhall.

Excerpt:

When I hear Christians saying we ought not get involved in politics but just “preach the Gospel,” I show them this satellite picture of the Korean peninsula. Here we see a homogenous population of mostly Koreans separated by a well-fortified border. South Korea is full of freedom, food and productivity—it’s one of the most Christianized countries in the world. North Korea is a concentration camp. They have no freedom, no food, and very little Christianity.

What’s the primary reason for the stark difference between these two countries? Politics. The South politically allows freedom, while the North does not.

Ironically, Christians who shun politics to supposedly advance the Gospel are actually allowing others to stop the Gospel. How so? Because politics and law affects one’s ability to preach the Gospel! If you think otherwise, visit some of the countries I have visited—Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. You cannot legally “preach the Gospel” in those countries—or practice other aspects of your religion freely—because politically they’ve ruled it out as they have in North Korea.

In fact, politics affects virtually every area of your life through the laws made by government. So if you care about your family, business, church, school, children, money, property, home, security, healthcare, safety, freedom, and your ability to “preach the Gospel,” then you should care about politics.

Politics affects everything, which is why leaders throughout the Bible—including Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Esther, John the Baptist, and Paul— “went political” to influence civil governments to govern morally. Even Jesus himself got involved in politics when he publically chastised the Pharisees—the religious and political leaders of Israel—for neglecting “the more important matters of the law.”

[…]But what can Christians do? After all, we can’t legislate morality, can we? News flash: All laws legislate morality! Morality is about right and wrong and all laws declare one behavior right and the opposite behavior wrong. So the question is not whether we can legislate morality, but “Whose morality will we legislate?”

[…]When we fail to legislate morally, others impose immorality. For example, totalitarian political correctness is already imposed in states such as Massachusetts where the implications of same-sex marriage override the religious liberties of businesses, charities and even parents. As documented here and illustrated here, same sex marriage prevents you from running your business, educating your children, or practicing your religion in accord with your Conscience. And soon, as is the case in Canada, you may not be able to merely speak Biblically about homosexual behavior. That is because those who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant.

Unless Christians begin to influence politics and the culture more significantly, we will continue to lose the very freedoms that enable us to live according to our beliefs and spread the Gospel all over the world. That’s why you should not vote for candidates because of their race or religion, but because they will govern morally on the more important matters of the law—life, marriage and religious freedom.

Dr. Turek says that some societies make it easier for us to carry out our responsibilities as Christians, such as evangelism. That’s true. But I want to make a different point from Dr. Turek related to the point that he made.

I get a lot of e-mails from people complaining that I spend too much time on fiscal issues, and especially on foreign policy. But I really think that Christians need to branch out and read widely about these issues, too. The more we know about everything, the better we will be able to connect what the Bible says to every area, and the smarter we will be at laying out plans for our lives and achieving the good goals we set for ourselves as part of our relationship with God.

It’s always better to know how things work. What good is it to say that you want to achieve some aim like helping the poor or making the world more peaceful unless you first study economics and foreign policy so that you will know how to achieve it? Many people try to achieve these goals by embracing policies that sound good, but they actually achieve the exact opposite ends that you set out to achieve.  If you want to drive a car to get somewhere, you must first learn how to drive a car. Why should faith be any different than anything else? Don’t take positions based on feelings or peer pressure, get informed and make a right judgment.

How apologetics relies on a sound understanding of the gospel

Eric posted an article linking theology and apologetics at the Ratio Christi Ohio State University blog.

Excerpt:

Many of us in the apologetic endeavor have lamented over the fact that there is still a lot of apathy among churches about the need to defend the faith in the public square.  I am convinced that one of the problems is that we are preaching a very weak Gospel. And if anything, it is a pragmatic Gospel. In other words, the Gospel is more about what Jesus can do for me. This can lead to a very self-centered Christian life rather than a mission centered Christian life. Don’t get me wrong: I know churches send their people on short- term mission trips. This is done to try to get people to  break Christians out of their narcissistic attitudes.

[…]To make Jesus as Lord of one’s life is a lifelong process. It is a call to daily surrender. It certainly means we are under NEW MANAGEMENT. We are called to yield our time, bodies, goals and gifts to His Lordship. Is it easy? No, not at all. I struggle with this quite a bit. But we do have a Helper to give us the grace to do it (hint: study the ministry of the Holy Spirit). So in other words, we say ‘”Lord Jesus, have your way with me. I am relying on the work of the Holy Spirit to yield myself to you on a daily basis.”

There is no doubt that in a world that wants instant results, self- sacrifice is tough sell.  As I said, part of the problem is that churches preach a Gospel that promises that Jesus will fix all our problems. And when things get tough, many people bail out. A long-term commitment to our Lord which involves self-denial (Luke 9:23) is hard to swallow for those that have been told The American Dream is the way of happiness.

I remember when I was growing up in youth group, my interest in apologetics was always looked at with suspicion by the other Christians and the church leaders. They all assumed nasty motives for me, like “pride” and having doubts about my faith. I think that churches need to get their act together and realize that apologetics is simply what Christians do when they 1) understand the gospel, and the importance of self-sacrifice and self-denial, and 2) understand that in today’s world, people have intellectual objections to faith that require careful reasoning and objective evidence. Apologetics is not second-class Christianity, it’s first-class Christianity. A person who does apologetics has clearly understood the what it means to take up his cross and follow Jesus.