Tag Archives: Postmodernism

Podcasts

MUST-HEAR: Greg Koukl and Kevin DeYoung discuss Brian McLaren’s apostasy

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Wow. Brian McLaren has completely abandoned traditional Christianity. Greg Koukl and Kevin DeYoung analyze his latest book “A New Kind of Christianity”. Hint: It seems to be mostly naturalism and leftist politics.

The MP3 file is here.

Details:

Kevin DeYoung – Brian McLaren’s New Kind of Christianity
Host: Greg Koukl

Guest: Kevin DeYoung – Brian McLaren’s “New Kind of Christianity” (00:00:00)
Commentary: Reality vs. Religion? The Modern Upper Story Leap (00:56:39)
Guest: Dennis Prager – Reality vs. Religion (01:52:25)

Caller Topics:
1. How do you prove an attribute of God’s to a non-Christian? (01:18:31)
2. When and how was Adam created on an old earth view? (01:26:37)
3. How do you answer claims of Bible contradictions by Bart Ehrman? (01:41:39)
4. Disagree on take on the Executive Order about funding abortions (02:18:18)
5. If materialism is true, can God recreate us on the Day of Resurrection and will us to be the identical person as before? (02:34:47)
6. Death before the Fall is wrong theologically and scientifically. (02:40:46)

Topics:

  • What is Brian’s view of Creation?
  • What is Brian’s view of the Fall?
  • What is Brian’s view of Scripture?
  • What is Brian’s view of Truth?
  • What is Brian’s view of sin and Hell?
  • What is Brian’s view of the Fall?
  • What is Brian’s view of atonement?
  • How did Brian’s leftist political views infect his theology?
  • How did postmodernism affect Brian’s epistemology?
  • How faithful is Brian in interpreting the text?

It’s a 3-hour national show. Greg has a monologue in Hour 2 which talks about the health care reform bill, Bart Stupak, and the fact/value distinction from Francis Schaeffer, and a short interview with famous Jewish scholar Dennis Prager in hour 3 to discuss the health care reform bill, Bart Stupak, and subjective religion versus objective religion. If you like the show, here’s the RSS feed for the podcast. Greg’s show was among the first things that got me started in apologetics so many years ago. He is a solid, but tolerant Calvinist, and so it’s fun for me to hear a perspective that is a little different from mine.

Please give the podcast a listen.

There’s also a nice blog post about Brian McLaren by Melinda from Stand to Reason, too.

Excerpt:

McLaren doesn’t think the Bible is to be taken literally. For instance, the Garden of Eden story isn’t about sin and the Fall, rather it’s a “compassionate coming of age story.”  Consequently, the whole idea of sin and Hell is a horrible overreaction and has caused the church to offer a violent message and image all these years.  It follows from this interpretation then, that there is no need for the cross and Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Those are violent ideas resulting from a bad reading of the Bible.

And a couple of longer reviews are linked.

Tim Challies and Kevin DeYoung have written excellent and more in-depth reviews of McLaren’s new book and I highly recommend them.

I highly recommend you listen to this podcast and if you know anyone who is being influenced by the (non) religious left, take a look at the articles, especially the DeYoung article, which is quite good.

Commentary

Friday night links: the origin of evil, spirituality vs. theology

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The origin of evil, from Wes at Reason to Stand.

Excerpt:

There is a big difference between 1a) God choosing to actualize (or create) a world where in evil is possible and 1b) further choosing to sustain it’s order in spite of the free choice to sin and perform evil by free (in a limited capacity) causal agents and 2) God’s being the direct cause of all that happens in the world such that all things that happen do so as a direct result of his will.

Religion and spirituality, from Alisha at Far Above Rubies.

Excerpt:

I understand the folks who don’t want to be called “religious” since it often has negative connotations tied to the word. Others, though, are “spiritual” simply because they don’t want to commit to any one faith tradition. They want it all. The problem with this I’ve found, is to everything in practice becomes very little, if nothing. I once dated a guy in college who I labeled a “Christian-Muslim-Buddhist-Everything”. Although he was raised Baptist, he had fallen away from any church, and chose to cherry-pick through what he deemed the best of them all. And the strange thing is, although he thought Jesus was awesome, he never actually read the Gospels. He respected the Koran, but never attended a mosque or read more than a few Hadiths. While trying to claim it all, he did nothing and believed very little. Needless to say, the relationship fizzled out pretty quickly.

Happy Friday!

Fine, if you want to read something funny, then Drew has this post (with original drawings) from his younger brother.

Commentary

Is moral relativism compatible with Christianity?

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Article from the American Thinker.

Excerpt:

There are many doctrinal differences among the denominations, and good people could debate them ad nauseam and still not settle every one. Yet if anything is central to Christianity, it’s the belief that Truth is spelled with a capital “T” — that it is absolute, universal, and eternal. And also central is a corollary of this belief: that there is an absolute, universal, and eternal answer to every moral question; that right and wrong are not a matter of opinion, and that they don’t change from time to time and place to place (although the perception of them certainly can. Ergo, swords lopping off heads.).

In fact, understand that moral relativism does nothing less than render the foundational act of Christianity, the sacrifice on the cross, incomprehensible. Why? Simply because Jesus died for our sins, and this presupposes that sin exists. However, if what we call morality is simply opinion, then there can be no such thing as sin.

[…]Now we come to why this piece isn’t just for Christians. The concept of Absolute Truth lies at the heart of Judaism, Islam, and, in fact, philosophy itself. Why philosophy? Because, properly defined, philosophy is the search for Truth. Now, some — including many philosophy professors — would dispute this, but they not only are babies in philosophy, but they also have adopted the endeavor of a madman: searching while claiming there is nothing to find.

If there is no Truth and only opinion, then there are no answers to be found. But then why ask questions?

[…]Of course, it’s tempting to embrace religious-equivalency doctrine in a multi-religious society because it’s thought that it enables us to get along. Like two little boys in a schoolyard who each agree to relinquish any claim that his daddy can beat up the other’s, we make the following unwritten pact: “I won’t say my faith is better than yours if you don’t say your faith is better than mine. Deal?” And it does work. Only then there is not only no reason to fight about religion, there is no reason to even discuss it. There is, in fact, no reason to even adopt it. That is, unless it somehow makes you feel good. But adherence to the principle “Do whatever feels good” is a pathway to something. It’s called sin.

Through his embrace of relativism, modern man has made Christianity incomprehensible. He has made philosophy incomprehensible. He has, in fact, made civilization itself incomprehensible. For if there is no right or wrong, then civilization can be no better than barbarism.

Something to think about when you feel pressured to say that morality is relative and truth is relative.