Blog Search Results

Jesus was a pagan copy, and other Christmas myths

It's that time of year again when certain groups of people like to share memes and videos that apparently "prove" Jesus to be a carbon-copy of ancient Egyptian gods. This has been debunked so many times, yet it's still so pervasive on social media, mindlessly shared over and over again. This myth about Jesus being a copy of other pagan "dying-and-rising gods" doesn't have its roots in Egyptian legend, but rather in the claims of a film called Zeitgeist. A quick search online will bring up many websites which have gone through the claims of this film with a fine tooth comb, and debunked each one. Here's one such example, which lists out the major claims and giv...

Why God Is Necessary For Morality

Guest post by Darwin to Jesus Dostoevsky famously said, “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” For years, as an atheist, I couldn’t understand what he meant, but now I do… Here’s a simple analogy that shows why only theism can make sense of morality: Imagine you just got hired at a company. You show up, set up your desk, and decide to use two large monitors. No big deal, right? But then some random guy walks up to you and says: “Hey, you’re not allowed to do that.” You ask, “What do you mean?” They say, “You’re not permitted* to use monitors that big.” In this situation, the correct response would be: “Says who...

David, Saul, And How We Respond To Broken Leadership

When we think about David and Saul, we often focus on David’s rise to kingship or his battle with Goliath. But hidden within that story is a deep lesson for today’s generation about leadership, resistance, and the power of revolutionary love. At a recent youth training event (thanks to South West Youth Ministries), I was asked how I would present the story of David and Saul to a Christian teenage youth group. My mind turned to the politics of their relationship, and how David accepted Saul’s leadership, even when Saul had gone badly astray. David recognised that Saul was still God’s anointed king — placed there by God Himself — and that it w...

Why Read The Early Church Fathers?

Why read the Early Church Fathers? Maybe for some of you reading this, the question might better be phrased as: who are the Church Fathers? No doubt you will be familiar with some of their names: Augustine, Jerome, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr et al. You may have even read portions or quotes by some of these men. But that still doesn't really explain to you who they are and why you should care, much less actually read any of their works. My new book deals with a selection of some of the most influential Early Church Fathers, sometimes also referred to as the Apostolic Fathers (if they lived between AD 70-150), or collectively as the Ante Nicene...

Humble without the #hashtag

As much as it a pains me to give this guy any more exposure, sometimes you need to in order to expose something. First, you need to watch the latest video from Joshua Feuerstein to understand what I'm talking about here:     I do this not to further his “cause” or “movement” but rather to counteract it. Mainly with something more practical, but hopefully also with more common sense too. It's things like this that give Christianity a bad name. I mean really, is this really what Christians should be worried about? Why not do something more useful like feed the homeless and start a movement that'll actually benefit society AND do something Jesus...

The Temptations of Jesus: Pride

Welcome to the first Part of a short series I'm writing during Lent. We’re on the first Sunday of Lent, and so I’m going to be looking at the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, and the temptations he endured. A new post will be up every Sunday, and you can view the series overview here: Lent 2018. Mark 1:12-13And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. That’s all Mark has to say on that time Jesus spent there, and John doesn’t mention the forty days at all. That leaves only Luke and Matthew which mention th...