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The World's Oldest Anti-Christian Meme

I first came across the Alexamenos graffito back in Bible college in the early 2000s. It was one of those “fun facts” that gets dropped into a church history lecture and sticks with you — the ancient Roman equivalent of someone spray-painting an insult on a wall. I filed it away, thought it was fascinating, and largely forgot about it for two decades. Then, recently, I discovered something about it I had never known. There’s a response to it. Scratched in a different room, in a different hand. So I started digging into this more to verify the information and discovered more historical curiosities surrounding the graffiti than I ever knew existed wh...

Four Blood Moons and everyone loses their minds

According to NASA, there are about two lunar eclipses per year. This time there happens to be four all within 18 months - something astronomers call a tetrad. I'm slightly surprised I've not seen much about this yet (maybe a good thing?), but it does seem as though this is an event certain Christians have been waiting for - and writing books about! I came across this on a recent Huffington Post article which gives this story also about church leaders saying these moons are "an omen of Armageddon and Second Coming of Christ", but I'm not so sure about that. I did recognise one of the names mentioned, though: John Hagee, a Texas megachurch pastor. It was p...

Should Christians get tattoos, and is it Biblical?

I was in a discussion not so long ago about tattoos, and I was asked about the historical view on this practice. It wasn’t something I had looked into before from a Church Fathers point of view, so it was an interesting topic of study. In my searching, I found this article from a Catholic site which seems to give a pretty interesting overview of some of the views about tattoos in the earlier centuries. The following is a quote about a Church Council in the context of native Britons, who still practiced tattooing at that time for pagan ritual, something which Tertullian also gives a fleeting reference to around 213 AD in his On the Veiling of Virgins, ch. 10....

Doubting Defying Jihad: Questioning the Popular Conversion Story

This is a guest post by “KingsServant” In 2019 a book called Defying Jihad was published by Tyndale House, the reputable Christian publisher telling the story of “Esther Ahmad” a pseudonym used by the author alongside her co-author Craig Borlase, who has previously written alongside, well known Christian personalities such as Matt Redman the singer and Andrew Brunson, an American pastor imprisoned by the Turkish government. As I began to read this book over this past year I was expecting an encouraging account of how a former Jihadi found Christ and escaped her previous accomplices. Very quickly, however, I became uncomfortable, her descriptions of her...

Do Christians And Muslims Really Worship The Same God?

“We all worship the same God”. Table of Contents 1) Where YHWH and Allah Appear Similar 2) Where Allah’s Character Contradicts YHWH’s Goodness 3) Where Their Revelations Directly Contradict Each Other 4) YHWH’s Love for the Nations vs. Allah’s Commands to Subjugate 5) Can God Be Seen? What the Bible and Qur’an Say 6) Salvation by Grace vs. Salvation by Works Conclusion: Same God? Or Different Revelations? You’ve heard it from politicians, celebrities, and even some pastors. It’s become something of a modern mantra, trying to shoehorn acceptance of other beliefs and blend all religions into one, especially the Abrahamic o...

Keeping Christ in Xmas

The abbreviation “Xmas” often sparks discussions about its origins and whether it diminishes the significance of Christmas. Contrary to misconceptions, the use of 'X' in "Xmas" has deep historical roots dating back to ancient Greek, where it represents the first letter of “Christ” (Χριστός). Additionally, the Chi Rho symbol, formed by superimposing the Greek letters Chi (Χ) and Rho (Ρ), is a notable Christian symbol representing Christ. The Origins of "Xmas" The letter ‘X’ in “Xmas” finds its roots in the Greek letter ‘Chi’ (Χ), which abbreviates the word “Christ” in Greek. This practice of using ‘X’ as an abbreviation for...